80 per cent of COPD sufferers ‘unaware’

Up to four-fifths of people suffering from a disease strongly associated with lung cancer have not been diagnosed as such, a new study says.

Cancer Research UK says that the number of people in the UK suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is usually caused by smoking and incorporates both bronchitis and emphysema, may be approaching four million.

Official figures say that only between 600,000 and 900,000 have been diagnosed with the disease, however.

Today’s research, published online in the journal Thorax, was conducted by studying saliva and lung function tests via questionnaires collected from 8,215 adults aged over 35.

More than 1,000 of the test subjects were found to be suffering from COPD but only 20 per cent were aware of this.

Even when the test conditions were applied to people with severe cases of COPD, the proportion of undiagnosed individuals was significant at half. Over one-third of people diagnosed with COPD were still smoking.

Professor Robert West, director of tobacco studies at Cancer Research UK’s health behavioural unit, said: “It is crucial to identify smokers with COPD and take urgent action to support them in stopping smoking because the most effective way of halting the progression of the disease is to stop smoking.

“Many smokers feel that they will get away with it and not be affected in a serious way by their habit. For smokers with COPD that doubt is removed. Every day they continue to smoke will make things worse.”

Professor West explained that COPD symptoms were often ignored or cast aside as the normal side-effects that smoking brings.

COPD is the sixth most common cause of death in England and Wales, killing more than 30,000 people every year.