Millions of smokers may have undiagnosed lung disease
Monday, June 22, 2015 - 12:30
in Health & Medicine
More than half of long-term smokers and ex-smokers who are considered disease-free because they passed lung-function tests have respiratory-related impairments when more closely evaluated with lung imaging, walking and quality-of-life tests. Many of those people likely have the earliest stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an incurable progressive disease that is the third leading cause of death in the United States.