Prevention is the biggest weapon in fight against COPD, say experts at KGMU on World COPD Day

Prevention is the biggest weapon in fight against COPD, say experts on World COPD Day (Pic for representation)

Prevention is the biggest weapon in the fight against chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), that is characterised by airflow obstruction, said experts at the COPD Update-2022 organised by the department of pulmonary and critical care medicine, at the King George’s Medical University to mark the World COPD Day.

Dr Rajendra Prasad, head of the deprtment (HoD) pulmonary medicine at Era University spoke on the growing burden of COPD in India and stressed about increasing awareness about it.

“For long although smoking has been thought as the only cause of COPD but air pollution and indoor biomass fuel exposures are almost equally responsible for the growing burden of this disease,” he said and stressed about controlling the preventable factors so as to decrease the burden of the disease.

Dr Ved Prakash, HoD, pulmonary and critical care medicine, KGMU, talked about the latest in the management of COPD from the recently published GOLD guidelines 2023.

He stressed that it includes a holistic approach rather than just medicines. The various aspects that need to be looked when managing these patients includes smoking cessation, proper nutrition, regular exercise, pulmonary rehabilitation, indoor and outdoor air pollution control, vaccination against influenza, pneumococcus and add proper adherence to the medication as advised by the expert physician.

Dr Rajiv Garg spoke about the importance of early diagnosis of COPD which helps in timely management and slows down progress of COPD. He stressed that if we are to modify the outcomes of COPD, early detection needs to play a critical role. He also aimed to clarify the differences between early COPD, mild COPD and early detection of COPD, with an emphasis on the clinical burden.