Developing of a Simple Screening Tool for Opportunistic COPD Case Finding

Abstract

Background Under diagnosis of COPD is serious problem in many countries world-wide because there are no generally detection tools available to detect high-risk patients for spirometry, and patients will not go for COPD check-up until a serious issue happens like exacerbation. Objective The aim of the work is trying to assess a new screening tool for early diagnosis of COPD. Patients and Methods The present study was conducted upon 500 subjects during the period from march 2018 to august 2018 who admitted to our chest department or visit our outpatient clinic, employees and visitors to Ain Sham hospitals.All subjects >40yrs who smoker or ex-smoker(≥10pack-years) applied a six variants(age,sex,packed years smoked during life ,dyspnea,chronic phlegmand chronic cohgh)questionnaire modified from PUMA questionnaire Subjects with score ≥5 did spirometry Results 500 subjects shared in the study 497 of them were males ( 99.4% )and 3 were females (.6%). 152of them(30.4%) had score <5 and 348 of them (69.6%)had score ≥5 who did spirometry.152 subjects did not perform spirometry. By spirometry we diagnosed 81(23.3) case COPD (fev1-fvc <.7) out of 348 subjects under gone spirometry and 16.2% of total subjects(500) . Conclusion Modified puma score is a simple and easy screening questionnaire for early detection of COPD cases and spirometry should be done to confirm the diagnosis or rule out.COPD is prevalent in many healthy apparent persons.