Prevalence of COPD in our lung cancer population, compared to controls
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Cross-sectional study to compare the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer, compared to controls
IRAS ID
171508
Contact name
Tariq Sethi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy's and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 2 days
Research summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a serious illness overwhelmingly resulting from tobacco smoking. It is responsible for a substantial reduction in both quality of life and life expectancy. Lung cancer is another serious consequence of smoking that is responsible for around a million deaths worldwide annually. Not all smokers develop COPD or lung cancer. However, there is evidence that COPD is more common in patients who are diagnosed with lung cancer.
COPD is characterised by two main processes - airway inflammation (bronchitis) and airspace destruction (emphysema). Inflammation is known to be harmful and is likely to play a role in the development of cancer. It is possible that COPD increases the risk of lung cancer, even independent of smoking exposure. However, as there are very few patients with COPD or lung cancer that have not smoked, this has been difficult to assess.
We know little about the prevalence of COPD in our lung cancer population here and would like to measure this in patients who are newly diagnosed with lung cancer. This would be done by recording their lung function results when they attend the lung cancer clinic (which are already measured) to establish whether or not they have COPD. We would also review their X ray and/or computed tomography (CT) scan results to establish whether or not they had emphysema.
We would then like to compare the prevalence of COPD in our newly diagnosed lung cancer patients to controls. Our controls would be patients who were referred to the smoking cessation service. We would ask these patients to undergo brief lung function testing (spirometry) if this had not already been performed. This would allow us to determine whether or not they had COPD. We would also ask these patients for details of their smoking history.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/YH/0091
Date of REC Opinion
12 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion