Senaida Bianovi
Background: The deterioration in lung function associated with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is directly related to duration of smoking and the number of cigarettes smoked. Over 85% of lung cancers are attributed to smoking. The problem is, whether the length of smoking consumption period has more impact to COPD and lung cancer than the bigger number of cigarettes smoked per day? Examinees and methods: The sample has constituted of two groups of examinees, smokers, both gender, age 25-64 years old. The first group consisted of 240 examinees divided in 8 subgroups according to a number of years they have been smoking. The second group consisted of 180 examinees, which was divided in 6 subgroups, according to average number of cigarettes smoked daily during the smoking consumption period.
Results: The prevalence of smoking was higher in men (65.7% vs. 62%) than in women (34.3% vs. 38%). Smoking duration in the group of smokers according to the length of smoking consumption period was 20.34±10.63 y and in the group of smokers according to a number of cigarettes smoked daily 13.55±8.20y. COPD were registered as the most frequent lung disease, in the group of smokers according to a number of cigarettes smoked per day 52.2% and in the group according to the length of smoking consumption period 39.1%, and the middle values of FEV1 (82.77% vs. 97.64%), and FEV1/FVC (86.02% vs. 97.73%) were lower in the group of smokers according to a number of cigarettes smoked.
Conclusion: Chronic respiratory symptoms, impairment of lung function and diagnosis of COPD depended more on the length of smoking duration than a number of cigarettes smoked.
