Jan. 11 (UPI) —<\/span> People at high risk for a common breathing disorder can be identified in less than eight minutes using simple screening tools, a study published Tuesday by JAMA found.<\/p>\n A patient symptom questionnaire or a questionnaire combined with a peak expiratory flow test accurately confirmed a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, more than 70% of the time, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The assessments took, on average, seven to eight minutes to complete and identified people with previously undiagnosed COPD, a group of serious lung conditions that includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the world’s major public health issues [and] there is a clear and pressing need to find better ways to identify people early, in all manner of settings,” study co-author Dr. John Hurst said in a press release.\n<\/p>\n “Our findings support the accuracy and feasibility of using simple screening tools to identify people affected by COPD,” said Hurst, a professor of respiratory medicine at University College London in England.<\/p>\n The questionnaire along with a Peak Expiratory Flow test, a low-cost device that measures how fast a person can exhale, can be used in low-income countries where access to more sophisticated diagnostic tools may be lacking, he said.<\/p>\n COPD is the third-leading cause of death globally, and it is linked with more than 3 million deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.\n<\/p>\n About 90% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, the agency says.<\/p>\n In high-income countries, COPD is typically caused by smoking tobacco and is diagnosed using a spirometer, which measures how much air a person can breathe out in one forced breath, Hurst and his colleagues said.<\/p>\n However, in other parts of the world, where spirometers are often not available, the disorder can be caused by household air pollution exposure or lung damage due to tuberculosis, they said.\n<\/p>\n Still, even in the United States, many people with these lung disorders, which cause breathing problems, go without treatment, research suggests.<\/p>\n For this study, the researchers assessed three COPD screening tools on more than 10,700 adults age 40 years and older in semiurban Bhaktapur, Nepal; urban Lima, Peru; and rural Nakaseke, Uganda.\n<\/p>\n Two of the screening tools included a patent questionnaire and Peak Expiratory Flow, while the third used only a patient questionnaire, the researchers said.<\/p>\n To confirm the diagnostic accuracy of the tools, all study participants were also given a spirometry test, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n Among the participants, 3% of those in Lima, 7% of those in Uganda and 18% of those in Nepal tested positive for COPD, and 95% of all cases were previously undiagnosed, the data showed.<\/p>\n Of participants with COPD, 16% had severe or very severe disease as measured on spirometry, the researchers said.<\/p>\n The screening tools performed similarly within each population, accurately identifying people with COPD more than 70% of the time, they said.<\/p>\n “It is alarming that a high percentage of … COPD cases … had severe or very severe changes in lung function, and that most were unaware of their diagnosis despite the high prevalence of symptoms,” Hurst said.<\/p>\n “In addition, only a minority of people had a history of smoking, further highlighting the poor conditions, exacerbated by biomass smoke, that people in low- and middle-income countries are living,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers have identified simple screening tools that can diagnose COPD in resource-poor countries. File photo by Guzel Studio\/Shutterstock Jan. 11 (UPI) — People at high risk for a common breathing disorder can be identified in less than eight minutes using simple screening tools, a study published Tuesday by JAMA found. A patient symptom questionnaire or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":745088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1247,176,289,1248,407,1249,28],"class_list":["post-745087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-copd","tag-finds","tag-globally","tag-millions","tag-screening","tag-simple","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Simple](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Simple-screening-for-COPD-could-help-millions-globally-study-finds.jpg\" "\\"Simple")
\n<\/div>\nResearchers have identified simple screening tools that can diagnose COPD in resource-poor countries. File photo by Guzel Studio\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n