Medicina Pulmonar e Respiratória

The Study of Aetiology of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in Non-Smokers

Abstract

Nisha Mathew, Zone Xavier, Ashish S Deshmukh, Hafiz Deshmukh, Sunil Jadhav and Shivaprasad Kasat

Although COPD occurs predominantly in smokers, non-smokers also develop COPD. In the past decade and especially the past 5 years, results from a growing number of published studies have suggested that risk factors other than smoking are strongly associated with COPD. The aim of the present study is to explore the different causes of non-smoker COPD patients getting treatment from Pulmonary Medicine department and to compare the demographic incidence of COPD in non-smokers in rural & urban areas.

It’s a study of 126 patients who came to pulmonary medicine department with breathlessness and cough. Every patient underwent spirometry and diagnosis of COPD got confirmed by post bronchodilator FEV1/FVC. Detailed history was taken regarding various risk factors leading to COPD, like biomass exposure, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, occupational exposure, outdoor and indoor air pollution, long standing bronchial asthma, history of pulmonary tuberculosis and associated co-morbidities.

In this study we found out that the exposure to biomass smoke is the most common aetiology of non-smoker COPD, followed by environmental tobacco smoke. Females are affected more than males. Non smoker COPD is more common in rural population than urban population.