COPD・肺がんにならないために

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a long-standing, crippling disease characterized by the accelerated decline of lung function, commonly brought by aging and long-time inhalation of toxic chemicals such as tobacco smoking. Consequently, most COPD patients suffer from chronic cough, sputum and dyspnea on exertion. Moreover, in addition to the decline of lung function due to the destruction of the alveolar structure, COPD is closely related to other diseases such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, muscle dysfuncion, and lung cancer. Therefore, COPD is currently recognized as a systemic disease that the comprehensive management and care are necessary. Although COPD represents an increasing burden throughout the world and is one of the major causes of death word-wide, the issue has been arisen that the recognition of COPD in the general society is still low, especially in Japan. On the other hand, lung cancer is a life-threatening disease with the leading cause of malignancy-related death world-wide, the etiology of which is also closely related to tobacco smoking. Because the pathogenesis and the mortality of COPD and lung cancer are closely related each other, the action to prevent these diseases could be made simultaneously, primarily by the smoking cessation and the detection survey. In this article, we describe the present situation of COPD and lung cancer, the importance of smoking cessation, and the effort of Tokushima City Medical Association to manage COPD in Tokushima.