Overview (S-000091)
The natural course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is perturbed by episodes of acute symptom worsening, known as exacerbations. The best and only way of identifying subjects susceptible to exacerbations is through their exacerbation history, where frequent exacerbations predict risk of future events. Most studies on exacerbations have focused on diagnosed and treated patients. The Canadian cohort obstructive lung disease (CanCOLD) has studied people from the general population with mild-moderate disease who are more likely to be seen in primary care practice. It has been demonstrated that individuals with mild-moderate COPD, having a previous physician diagnosed and those having undiagnosed COPD, had 1> exacerbation in 40% and 22%, and an incidence rate of exacerbations of 0.63 and 0.23 exacerbations per person-year, respectively. Although patients with physician undiagnosed COPD experience fewer exacerbations than those with physician diagnosed COPD, they had no statistically significant difference in the amount of health services used for exacerbation events; thus, the overall health system burden of exacerbations in those with physician undiagnosed COPD is considerable. Recently, attention has been given to candidate biomarkers that can predict response to treatment or relevant outcomes. Studies have shown an association between increased blood eosinophils (EOS), frequency of exacerbations and treatment responses to inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) in COPD patients. As there is an established association between blood and lung EOS counts, it appears that blood EOS counts have the potential to act as a biomarker for EOS-associated inflammation in the lungs. To date, there is limited information on blood EOS count as a prognostic biomarker for COPD exacerbations in the community, and none in the Canadian population. A better understanding of the association between blood EOS and COPD exacerbations could help predict exacerbations as a clinical outcome, would be of importance to help targeting patients for specific therapy or to be used as surrogate endpoint in trials.
Calendar
- Application Date
- 2022-10-19
- Approval Date
- 2022-11-02
Contact Details
- Name
- Dr. Jean Bourbeau
- Institution
-
Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC)