Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic disease of the lungs, which damages the airways and lung tissue causing the sufferer to have difficulty breathing.
A person with COPD may have bronchiolitis or obstructive bronchitis, pulmonary emphysema or a combination of the two.
Why does COPD occur?
It is caused primarily by inhaling cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke causes bronchial and bronchiolar inflammation and destroys the alveolar lung tissue causing pulmonary emphysema.
How is COPD diagnosed and what symptoms can evidence it?
Tobacco COPD is diagnosed by performing a spirometry test to detect the existence of an obstructive airflow disorder. In any case, in a smoker who comes for consultation, even if there is still no obstructive disorder when spirometry is performed and the specialist in Pneumology cannot yet diagnose tobacco COPD, the most important recommendation we should make is to stop smoking cigarettes.
The first symptoms are cough with or without phlegm (expectoration). This “morning smoker’s cough” is not normal. It is telling us that there is inflammation in the bronchi and bronchioles.
How should COPD be treated and can the patient be cured?
The best treatment for tobacco COPD is to stop smoking cigarettes to prevent the disease from continuing its inexorable course, which no medication can prevent. If the person with tobacco COPD stops smoking cigarettes, the loss of lung capacity or function becomes almost like that of a non-smoker.
The treatments used in this disease are only symptomatic, that is, to relieve respiratory distress; they do not change the inexorable course of the disease, nor the progressive worsening of symptoms, nor do they increase survival. The only measure that increases survival is to stop smoking cigarettes.
These symptomatic treatments are inhaled bronchodilators: beta-2 agonists and anticholinergics. Depending on the severity of the symptoms and the obstructive airflow disorder, both types, long-acting beta-2 agonists and anticholinergics, are sometimes used together in a single drug.
In addition to smoking cessation, it is important to maintain an adequate weight and to exercise and walk. Being overweight or obese causes the person with tobacco COPD to have greater respiratory difficulty on exertion.
Tobacco COPD cannot be cured, but it can be prevented by not smoking cigarettes. Years ago, INSALUD used to say: “Tobacco or Health: you decide”.