Korean J Intern Med.  2008 Jun;23(2):72-77. 10.3904/kjim.2008.23.2.72.

Clinical findings of the patients with legal pulmonary disability: Short-term follow-up at a tertiary university hospital in Korea

• Kyung SY
• Kim YJ
• An CH
• Lee SP
• Park JW
• Jeong SH

• KMID: 759959
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3904/kjim.2008.23.2.72

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Legal pulmonary disability in Korea is decided for chronic respiratory patients who have been diagnosed for a year or more, and the patients haven't gotten better after more than 2 months of sufficient treatment and they have shown no change in their pulmonary function within the two years after their original diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features and progress of those patients who have been diagnosed as having pulmonary disability. METHODS: We reviewed retrospectively the medical records of the patients who had been decided as having pulmonary disability at a tertiary university hospital from 2003 to 2004, and these patients could be followed up for more than 6 months. RESULTS: The number of enrolled patients was 118 (male : female = 95 : 23) and their mean age was 60+/-10 years. Their major underlying diseases were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n=45, 38%), tuberculous destroyed lung (n=29, 25%), and bronchial asthma (n=27, 23%). Of them, the number of patients with a class 1 pulmonary disability were 24 (20%), there were 28 class 2 patients (24%) and 66 class 3 patients (56%). The FEV1 could be followed up for 42 of these patients, of whom 20 patients showed no change or a decrease in their FEV1 but 22 showed an increased FEV1. Especially, some of them showed the increase of their FEV1 of 10% or more, and the 50% of them were patients with bronchial asthma. During the follow-up period, 6 patients died; 3 were class 1, 1 was class 2 and 2 were class 3. Five of these patients died of their underlying pulmonary diseases or combined pneumonia. CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to decide the pulmonary disability after sufficient treatment and to perform periodic follow-up testing even after the disability decision for confirming that the disability is stable and also to adjust the class of the disability. Further studies are needed to observe the clinical progress and prognosis of patients with pulmonary disability by performing long-term follow-up for a large number of patients.

Keyword

Pulmonary disability; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Pulmonary tuberculosis; Bronchial asthma

MeSH Terms

Asthma/mortality/*physiopathology
Blood Gas Monitoring, Transcutaneous
Decision Making
*Disabled Persons
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Forced Expiratory Volume
Health Status Indicators
Hospitals, University/statistics & numerical data
Humans
Korea/epidemiology
Male
Middle Aged
Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive/mortality/*physiopathology
Retrospective Studies
Severity of Illness Index
Time Factors
Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/mortality/*physiopathology