BACKGROUND

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is among the leading causes of chronic morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Potentially, COPD can be prevented by the early detection of COPD, which generally entails spirometry. Physicians in smoking cessation outpatient are in an ideal position to detect early-stage of COPD by the simple examination of the patient. They can also perform spirometry to confirm the diagnosis of COPD. The main objective of this study was to assess the frequency of COPD among smokers in smoking cessation outpatient. Secondary objectives were to Compare two methods for COPD screening, the questionnaire (clinical score) and the mini-electronic spirometer (Neo-6) and to assess the degree of motivation to stop smoking by the announcement of lung age to smokers.

METHODS

a prospective cross-sectional study was carried out in four consultations for smoking cessation. Inclusion criteria were male patients aged over 35 years and seen in smoking cessation outpatient. A clinical score was then calculated to detect COPD. This score is based on age, BMI, the quantity of tobacco smoking and the respiratory clinical signs. By establishing this score, we could classify our smokers on consultants with likely COPD if the clinical score>16. Secondly, a measure of the breath with a portable minispirometre "neo6" was performed with quantification of the first second forced expiratory volume (FEV1), forced expiratory volume in 6 seconds (FEV6) and their ratio (FEV1/FEV6). A ratio FEV1/FEV6 less than 0.8 was in favor of an obstructive ventilator defect (DVO). In this case a total body plethysmography was indicated.

RESULTS

The sample of the study consisted of 115 male smokers with a mean age of 48±12 years old. A low socio-economic level and a low level of education were found respectively in 50.4% and 58% of smokers. Cigarette smoking is the most consumed form of tobacco. A significant clinical score predicting COPD, was found in 54 patients. The measurement of the breath through the Neo-6 found that 23 (20%) smokers had FEV1/FEV6 less than or equal to 0.7 predicting bronchial obstruction and 26 had a ratio between 0.7 and 0.8. plethysmography confirmed the diagnosis of COPD for 27 patients. So the prevalence of COPD in our sample was of 23.48%. The clinical score had a sensibility of 81.48% and a specificity of 63.64 with a negative predictive value of 91.8%. The sensitivity of the Neo 6 (70.37%) is smaller than the clinical score but the specificity is better than 95.94 % of the clinical score. Its negative predictive value was 91.3%. So when VEMS/VEM6 ratio is greater than 0.7, the probability of COPD remains very low. The announcement of the pulmonary patient age is an important parameter for the motivation to stop smoking.

CONCLUSION

The combination of a standardized questionnaire to the measure of breath by Neo6 can further optimize COPD screening.