Hospital deaths related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease declined significantly between 2005 and 2014, according to research presented during ATS (American Thoracic Society) 2017 meeting held in Washington, D.C., from May 19-24.
For the study, researchers analyzed nationwide data on 95 percent of all hospital discharges in the United States. The research team identified 8,575,820 hospitalizations for COPD-related health problems from 2005 to 2014. While rates of hospitalizations for the condition experienced marginal fluctuation during the observed time period, in-hospital deaths for COPD dropped from 24,226 to 9,090 — a 62 percent decrease.
"This is certainly an encouraging trend," said Khushboo Goel, MD, a second-year internal medicine resident at the University of Arizona in Tuscon. "We expected to see a decline because of improvements in caring for conditions such as pneumonia, sepsis, septic shock and thromboembolic diseases associated with COPD exacerbations, but the magnitude of the decline in mortality was surprising."
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