Descriptors of dyspnea in obstructive lung diseases: Multidisciplinary Focus on: Dyspnea. Edited by / a cura di Giorgio Scano

Sabina A. Antoniu

doi:10.4081/mrm.2010.531

Descriptors of dyspnea in obstructive lung diseases

Multidisciplinary Focus on: Dyspnea. Edited by / a cura di Giorgio Scano

Authors

Sabina A. Antoniu University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Gr.T.Popa” Iasi, Department of Internal Medicine II- Pulmonary Disease, Pulmonary Disease University Hospital, Iasi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4081/mrm.2010.531

Keywords:

Descriptors, dyspnea, exercise testing, obstructive lung diseases.

Abstract

In obstructive lung diseases such as asthma and COPD dysp- nea is a common respiratory symptom with different charac- teristics given the different pathogenic mechanisms: in COPD initially it can occur during exertion but then it increases pro- gressively along with the airflow obstruction, whereas in asthma it occurs episodically and is caused by transient bron- choconstriction. The language of dyspnea includes a large range of clinical descriptors which have been evaluated for their correlation (of one or several descriptors) with underlying physiologic/phys- iopathologic mechanisms. These studies were done in asthma rather than in COPD, and dyspnea descriptors were found to be useful in identifying patients with life-threatening asthma. However further studies are needed to further explore such descriptors and their clinical utility. This review discusses dyspnea mechanisms in various obstructive lung disease subsets as well as the descriptors of dyspnea and their utility in clinical practice.