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Abstract
Background and objective
Few studies have examined the natural course of early COPD. The aim of this study was to observe the natural course of early COPD patients. We also aimed to analyze medical utilization and costs for early COPD during a 6-year period.
Methods
Patients with early COPD were selected from Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) data. We linked the KNHANES data of patients with early COPD to National Health Insurance data.
Results
A total of 2,397 patients were enrolled between 2007 and 2012. The mean forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) was 78.6%, and the EuroQol five dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) index value was 0.9. In total, 110 patients utilized health care for COPD in 2007, and this number increased to 179 in 2012. The total mean number of days used per person increased from 4.9 in 2007 to 7.8 in 2012. The total medical cost per person also increased from 248.8 US dollar (USD) in 2007 to 780.6 USD in 2013. A multiple linear regression revealed that age, lower body mass index, lower FEV1 (%), and lower EQ-5D score were significantly associated with medical costs.
Conclusion
Even in early COPD patients, some of them eventually progressed and utilized health care for COPD.
Keywords:
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by a grant (2014P3300300) from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This study was supported by COPD cohort data of HIRA.
Disclosure
CKR received consulting/lecture fees from MSD, AstraZeneca, Novartis, GSK, Takeda, Mundipharma, Sandoz, Boehringer-Ingelheim, and Teva-Handok. The other authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.