The domestic social and economic cost of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, amounts to 1.4 trillion won ($1.3billion) annually, a study shows.

The Korean Academy of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (KATRD)_{대한결핵및호흡기학회} released the report, during a news conference commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Lung Day at Sejong Cultural Center in Seoul Tuesday, urging people to understand the necessity of early diagnosis of COPD.

According to the academy, the social and economic cost of COPD reaches 1.4 trillion won a year. It breaks down to 234 billion won for health insurance cost, 50 billion won for unofficial medical expenses, 562.6 billion won for nursing cost, 4.8 billion won for transportation cost, 461.2 billion won resulting from production loss, and 109 billion won caused by premature deaths.

The annual COPD cost per person was 338,000 won on average for outpatient medical cost and 788,000 won for hospitalization fee. Particularly wide was the gap between patients whose disease got worse and those who did not, by totaling 5.89 million won and 307,000 won, respectively.

KATRD holds a news conference to release the results of a study on social and economic costs of COPD, at Seoul Sejong Cultural Center Tuesday.

The researchers conducted their study in two ways. First, they analyzed the medical costs of 192,496 COPD patient registered at Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) _{건강보험심사평가원} to know direct medical costs. Second, to know uncovered medical costs, nursing costs and production loss, they checked medical bill receipts of sample COPD patients by severity issued by primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals for one year, as well as conducted a survey (on 373 COPD patients over 40).

COPD is one of the chronic respiratory diseases to generate inflammatory injury in lungs caused by hazardous gases such as cigarette smoke and pollution, and its symptoms include coughing, phlegm, and difficulty in breathing. Patients may have trouble in daily life due to difficulty in breathing and the lack of oxygen.

It is a significant disease, being ranked at the seventh place among leading causes of death in Korea, as well as being placed at seventh for men and third for women, in disability adjusted life years (DALYs). It is important to manage it consistently and comprehensively like hypertension and diabetes.

COPD prevalence rate in Korea is 14 percent, or 3 million people aged 40 or older, regardless of smoking. It is quite a common disease: one in every five men over 40, or 20.5 percent, and one in three over 65, 31.5 percent, has the disease.

In September 2011, World Health Organization (WHO) announced four diseases needed for intensive management among non-communicable diseases (NCDs) -- cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and COPD. In 2015, COPD showed fourth-highest mortality and eighth-highest years of life loss (YLLs).

“COPD is a chronic disease, but people don’t know much about illness and the risk of the disease. As the prevalence rate will increase even higher because of rapid population aging and air pollution, people have to realize its seriousness, and the society should pay more attention,” said Director Kim Young-kyun_김영균, who also heads Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital_{서울성모병원}.

Another expert agreed. “If patients don’t get early treatment, their lungs will be in irrecoverable condition. If the can manage to control the disease early through quitting smoking and inhalant treatment, they can keep it from proceeding to severe conditions,” said Professor Lee Jin-kuk_이진국 of Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital.

In the meeting, there were also calls for changing COPD treatment by primary medical institutions.

“Currently, the COPD prevalence rate is high, but the diagnosis rate is low in Korea. The patients’ COPD awareness is weak, and rate of medical checkup of lung functions are also low. Moreover, doctors tend to prescribe oral drugs that may generate side effects instead of inhalant recommended by the global guideline,” Professor Lee said

The lung function examination is essential for COPD diagnosis. Making the diagnosis without the examination is same to diagnose diabetes without blood sugar examination or hypertension without blood pressure checkup, Lee noted.

The professor also called for institutional support to change treatment environment.

“By law, doctors or engineers are supposed to test lung function. The equipment to examine lung functions and medical cost for the examination is only 10,000 won ($8.8), although the equipment is expensive,” Lee said. “And when doctors prescribe inhalant, they have to take time to educate patients. In other words, doctors face various reasons that make it difficult to focus on COPD treatments in reality.”

The society is pushing to introduce new cost item for COPD education as well as the national examination of lung functions to solve these problems, Lee added

Meanwhile, the society has designated the second Wednesday of October and conducted a campaign to raise public awareness.

This year’s event, the 15 anniversary, will be held in Seoul Forest Park and Yeungnam University Medical Center_{영남대병원} in Daegu on Oct. 11. There will be mini-lectures by experts from the division of pulmonology and free lung function examination and treatment consultation.

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