Article Category: Brief communication (Original)
Published Online: Jan 31, 2017
Page range: 613 - 623
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0905.431
Keywords
© 2015 Nattinee Leelakanok, Nitra Piyavisetpat
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Not all morphological lung changes in the elderly contribute to respiratory disease and may be a consequence of normal aging.
Objectives
To describe the changes in asymptomatic elderly patients compared with those in younger patients in a Thai population.
Methods
The study cohort comprised 60 participants without respiratory symptoms in three groups of 20 by age: 20-40 years, 41-60 years, and >60 years. Participants were prospectively selected from patients referred for computed tomography (CT) of the abdomen, or head and neck, and underwent sequential CT during deep breathing at four lung levels. Two observers scored images by consensus. We compared groups using Pearson chi-square and Fisher exact tests, and used receiver operating characteristic curves to categorize bronchiectasis and bronchial wall thickening by age.
Results
Air trapping was related to age (5/20 group 1, 7/20 group 2, and 18/20 group 3 (
Conclusions
Asymptomatic older patients had higher prevalence of bronchiectasis, bronchial wall thickening, and air trapping, independent of smoking history.