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A new screening tool consisting of 5 questions could help diagnose people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a little-known, silent disease characterized by severe shortness of breath, chronic cough and sputum. In France, it is not rare, since it affects 7.5% of the population. In order to improve its diagnosis, researchers may have found the solution: use a screening tool in 5 questions.
A tool consisting of 5 questions
The new tool – developed in partnership with the “National Heart Lung and Blood Instituteand comprised of 5 questions – was scrutinized by researchers at the Jama Network journal.
To do this, they tested the effectiveness of the tool (named CAPTURE) from October 2018 to April 2022 with 4,325 participants aged 45 to 80.
All candidates had to answer the questionnaire. Then, the results were analyzed by the research team.
Participants then took an office breathing test called peak expiratory flow (PEFR) which measures the force of expiration and lung function.
Important detail: candidates who obtained a score of 5 or 6 on the CAPTURE test did not need to take the PEFR breath test. Instead, they had to undergo tests immediately to confirm the presence of COPD.
53 patients were diagnosed thanks to the questionnaire
While the questionnaire identified 53 participants with a “moderate to severe” form of the disease, it also provided 479 false positives.
In fact, the researchers plan to modify the questions in order to improve the precision of the tool.
“I think this is a promising step towards an easy-to-use screening tool for primary care physicians. Nevertheless, the performance of this screening tool could be better: only about half of people diagnosed with COPD tested positive“, note the scientists.