Physician-Diagnosed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Prevalence According to Age Groups in Türkiye

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most important morbidity and mortality reasons worldwide. The purpose of our study is to evaluate physician-diagnosed COPD epidemiology according to age groups.
Methods: ICD10 J44.0-9 diagnoses codes in the database of Turkish Social Security Institution between 2007 and 2016 was checked through. Distribution of COPD through age groups (40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and 80 years and older) among male and female population still alive in 2016 was calculated.
Results: 56.7% of 3,168,459 patients with average age of 62.53±15.07 were males. It was determined that 3.2% prevalence in female age group of 40–49 increased up to 23.1% in the age of 80+, 4.2% prevalence in male age group of 40–49 increased up to 35.3% in the age of 80+. In total, it increased from 3.7% to 27.7% in the same group of ages. Rate of the patients between the ages of 40–69 was calculated as 66% of the total number of patients.
Discussion and Conclusion: As a result, physician-diagnosed COPD prevalence in Türkiye has an increasing trend by age both in male and female population. One out of each four individuals over the age of 80 years is diagnosed with COPD. Such an evaluation shows that COPD is more frequently in older ages. However, it is not correct to limit COPD as an advanced age disease, since the majority of the patient population is 70 years and under.

Keywords: COPD, age groups, epidemiology, prevalence