Health Day Reporter
Wednesday, August 3, 2022 (HealthDay News)—— Women tend to experience more severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than men, and their smaller airways may be to blame, a new study suggests.
Changes in smoking behavior and urbanization, although COPD diagnoses and mortality rates remain high in men, researchers note The acceleration of the process has increased the number of women with COPD.
“The prevalence of COPD in women is rapidly approaching that of men, and airway disease may be what we’re seeing cause of the high incidence of COPD in women,” said study author Surya Bhatt, PhD, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Survey results published in magazine on August 2 Radiology .
“When the airway is When narrowing, women have a greater impact on symptoms and survival than men,” Bhatt noted in a journal release.
” Differences in airway size even after adjusting After height and lung size were determined, the effect of greater airway size changes on clinical outcomes in women was significant because women appeared to be less reserving for developing airway disease and COPD,” he said.
COPD is a group of diseases that includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. They can cause airflow obstruction and breathing problems. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16 million Americans have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
For this study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 10,000 people who participated in a study targeting current smoking A study of smokers, ex-smokers, and never-smokers.
Age between 45 and 80 years of age, and were in the United States between January 2008 and June 2011 on 21 treatment at two clinical centers and then continued until November 2020. CT scans use seven airway size and function measures, including airway wall thickness, percent wall area, airway Volume and total airway counts. After calculating each airway measure, the researchers then adjusted for age, height, race, body mass index, pack years of smoking, current smoking status, and total lung capacity.
The research team found that in 420 people who had never smoked, men had thicker airway walls than women. The airway lumens (the inside of the bronchi in the lungs; the bronchi are tubes that guide air to both lungs) are smaller in women than in men after taking into account height and total lung capacity.
Among 9,363 current and former smokers, men had greater wall thickness and women had greater lumen diameter Narrower. The unit change in each airway measure resulted in decreased lung function, shortness of breath, decreased quality of life, shorter six-minute walk distance, and decreased survival in women compared with men.
These gender differences should be factored into the development of new treatments for airway disease, Bhatt said.
More information
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on Information on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Source: Radiology , Press Release, August 2, 2022
