Chronic Lung Obstruction Now a Woman's Disease

Death rate for women with COPD has tripled in last 20 years, government report finds

By Adam Marcus
HealthDayNews Reporter

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THURSDAY, Aug. 1 (HealthDayNews) -- The death rate from chronic lung obstruction has tripled among American women in the last two decades, according to a new government report that also shows the disease in general is vastly under-diagnosed.

As many as 24 million Americans suffer symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), mostly due to smoking, the report says. But 14 million of them aren't properly diagnosed with these health problems, which include chronic bronchitis and emphysema, it adds.

Not only is the prevalence of COPD about 2.4 times higher than physicians formally determine, but women are now more likely than men to die from the disorder, according to the new figures.

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"COPD is now a woman's disease," says Dr. David Mannino, a lung expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lead author of the surveillance report. Mannino blames the "alarming" increase on the rise in smoking among women after World War II.

In the year 2000 alone, COPD caused 8 million doctor and outpatient visits, 1.5 million trips to the emergency room and 726,000 hospitalizations in this country, on its way to killing almost 120,000 people, the CDC says. It is the nation's fourth leading cause of death, generally afflicting the elderly.

The rate of death from the disease among women tripled between 1980 and 2000, from 20 per 100,000 to 57 per 100,000. It rose much more modestly among men, from 73 to 82 per 100,000, during that period.

But in the year 2000, government officials say, there were 59,936 female deaths from COPD in 2000 vs. 59,118 male deaths.

Smoking is believed to account for 80 to 85 percent of COPD cases in the United States, with the rest attributed to various other causes such as pollution and on-the-job dust, Mannino says. In developing countries, the disease's origins are somewhat broader, and include coal burned during cooking and heating.

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