Asthma, asthma-COPD overlap syndrome, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Turkey

BACKGROUND: Asthma, asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease overlap syndrome (ACOS), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are the most common pulmonary diseases worldwide characterized by chronic airway inflammation and airway obstruction. There isn't enough information about the new diagnosed asthma, ACOS, and COPD outpatients among the Turkish population. We aimed to describe the disease characteristics of outpatients with new diagnosed asthma, ACOS, and COPD. METHODS: New diagnosed asthma, ACOS, and COPD outpatients were retrospectively evaluated at Samsun Medical Park Hospital, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, between May 2012 and July 2017. RESULTS: In total of 108 outpatients were included in the study. The main age was 56.6 +/- 14.7 years and male to female ratio was 95/13. Most common symptoms were dyspnea (32.5%) and cough (27.8%). Bronchodilator reversibility was positive in 52(48.1%) of the patients. The most common group of outpatients was ACOS (31.5%). Eleven patients (10.1%) had pulmonary comorbidities including lung cancer (N.=7), interstitial lung diseases (N.=2) and bronchiectasis (N.=2). 3(3%) patients were newly diagnosed both with lung cancer and COPD at the same time in outpatient clinic. CONCLUSIONS: ACOS is the most common type of obstructive lung disease and it can be defined with age >40 years, smoking, postbronchodilator FEV1/FVC <70% of expected and postbronchodilator FEV1 value can raise over 70% due to high reversibility rates. Lung cancer is the most common pulmonary comorbidities in COPD patients. The outpatients with new diagnosed COPD who is over the age of 40 and smoker should be screened for lung cancer.