Does place of treatment affect prognosis for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)?

Figures & data

Figure 1.  Numbers of emergency treatment periods for COPD managed by a general practitioner (—Δ—), a specialist in pulmonary diseases (—○—), and a specialist in internal medicine (—▪—) in 1995–2004.

Figure 2.  Mean lengths of emergency treatment periods for COPD (in days) when managed by a general practitioner (—Δ—), a specialist in pulmonary diseases (—○—), and a specialist in internal medicine (—▪—) in 1995–2004.

Table I.  Principal parameters for COPD treatment periods beginning with emergency admissions (n=77 445) in 1995–2004 according to specialization.

		General practice	Pulmonary diseases	Internal medicine
Sex, n
	Male	19,837	21,900	14,274
	Female	6,351	9,141	5,942
Mean age, years
	Men	74.1	71.0	72.1
	Women	74.6	70.1	72.2
Age group, %
	under 65 years	14.3	23.8	20.2
	65–74 years	36.5	42.3	40.6
	75–84 years	39.0	30.5	32.8
	85 years or over	10.2	3.4	6.5
Subsidiary diagnosis, %		32.7	39.0	38.6
	cardiovascular disease	19.5	17.7	29.8
	respiratory disease	8.7	22.3	10.6

Table II.  Numbers of patients who died during treatment for acute exacerbation of COPD in 1995–2004 (n=2328), according to speciality and subsidiary diagnosis (%).

	General practice n=812	Pulmonary diseases n=852	Internal medicine n=664
Subsidiary diagnosis	58.7	51.2	55.1
Cardiac disease	23.2	17.9	30.8
Pneumonia	13.2	9.8	7.4
Malignancy	5.2	8.6	2.9
Other	58.4	63.7	58.9