Newswise — Something as simple as getting excited can be debilitating for 75-year-old Janet Smith. While she hasn't had a cigarette since 1985, she is paying the price for her 33 years as a smoker. Smith is one of the growing numbers of Americans coping with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, the fourth leading cause of death in the country.
"I feel normal until I walk a block, then I have to catch my breath," said Smith. "I would love not to have to wear my oxygen and just be able to breathe."
A desire to get better prompted the Norristown woman to join a research study on the potential genetic factors behind this incurable lung disease. Temple Lung Center is the only institution in the region taking part in the COPD Gene project, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Temple and 16 other leading medical centers are recruiting more than 12,000 people across the country to determine who is at risk for developing the chronic lung condition, which encompasses emphysema and chronic bronchitis. They're looking for current and former smokers. Though cigarettes are the number one cause of COPD, not every smoker develops the lung disease. Since only 25 percent of smokers will get COPD, researchers believe there may be a gene that makes some people more susceptible than others.
"We believe that race and gender might be factors in who gets COPD," says Gerard J. Criner, M.D., Florence P. Bernheimer Distinguished Service Chair, professor, Department of Medicine, and director of the Temple Lung Center. "If we find genetic factors, it may point to why some people do better than others and that might allow us to find out the root cause to help predict which patients are at greater risk."
Doctors admit they know very little about COPD. Despite $40 billion spent each year on healthcare costs related to the disease, it is under recognized and often goes untreated. The face of the epidemic is changing, as more minorities and women die from the disease.
Certain patients, like women, will be predisposed to COPD even if they smoke the same amount as men. Since 2000, more women have died from COPD than men, with the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that more than 60,000 women died from the disease in 2004, compared to 57,000 men. Studies indicate that 2 percent of smokers who get COPD have a genetic cause called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
But what about the smokers who don't have that gene and the non-smokers who actually make up the majority of COPD cases? Why do they have COPD? Unanswered questions like these drive Criner's research on the COPD Gene study.
"If we can identify a gene that will lead to a more targeted diagnosis, maybe we can even manipulate that gene for treatment. We're talking about saving lives," says Criner.
And while there is no cure for COPD, it is treatable and even preventable. Not smoking and staying away from heavily polluted areas decrease the chance of developing COPD. Smokers need to quit and become educated about the symptoms of COPD. Two separate studies in the New England Journal of Medicine find new drugs improve lung function, which improve the quality of life for people with COPD, like Janet Smith.
"I really hope that by being a part of this study I can either help myself or someone else," she said.
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