Early diagnosis of COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, increases the quality of life of the patient and the efficacy of available treatments. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now shown that material from nasal lavage provides a basis for assessing COPD. The study, which has been published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, could lead to a simple diagnostic method for early assessment of COPD.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects ten percent of the population and is the fourth most common cause of death in the world. The disease is mainly caused by smoke from biomass and the patient group is very heterogeneous in terms of symptoms and prognosis.
This means that the medical needs vary greatly, while today’s examination methods are neither…