Epidemiology:
According to recent statistics, chronic bronchi- tis affects approximately 10 million people in the United States, the majority of which are between 44 and 65 years of age. Among them, 24.3% with chronic bronchitis are older than 65 years, and surprisingly 31.2% are between the ages of 18 and 44 years. The numbers affected by chronic bronchitis dramatically increase with smoking. Pelkonen et al. followed 1711 Finnish men in rural com- munities for 30 years and found the incidence of chronic bronchitis was 42% in continuous smokers, 26% in ex-smokers, and 22% in never-smokers. In a recent cross-sectional study of over 5000 adult current or ex-smokers with over a 10-pack-year history, the prevalence of chronic bronchitis, using the classic definition, was a striking 34.6%. The prevalence of chronic bronchitis is higher in COPD patients, affecting 14 – 74% of all COPD patients.
Chronic bronchitis seems to affect whites more than blacks, but the majority of studies have been composed of mostly whites. A recent study of non-Hispanic whites and blacks found that COPD patients were more likely to be white than black, but the differences in racial distribution between those with and without chronic bronchitis were small. Sex has also been a matter of debate. Many studies have found that chronic bronchitis affects men more than women. How- ever, according to the 2013 American Lung Association study, the prevalence rates of chronic bronchitis in women were nearly twice that in men (59.7 vs. 29.6 per 1000 persons). A 10-year study of 21 130 Danish patients showed that the cumulat- ive prevalence of chronic mucus secretion was 10.7% in women vs. 8.7% in men. The reasons for the higher prevalence of chronic bronchitis in women compared to that in men are unclear, but may be due to hormonal influences, sex differences in symptom reporting, and sex diagnostic bias; for example, in the European Respiratory Society Study on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (EUROSCOP) study, women reported more dyspnea and cough, but less phlegm symptoms than men
Until next time: here's a great animation just on Emphysema!
Key Articles:
Kim, V. (2015). The chronic bronchitis phenotype in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Features and implications. Current Opinion, 21(00), 1-9. Retrieved January 17, 2015.
Searched databases: NIH, WHO, PubMed, Medline.
Search Terms: "COPD", "COPD US", "COPD epidemiology", "US epidemiology COPD" "COPD US prevalence"
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