An Italian, observational, multicenter trial in female COPD patients: Preliminary data on the women reality in the MISTRAL study

Introduction Clinical management of COPD patients (pts) can be influenced by whether the pts are frequent or non-frequent exacerbators (FE or NFE, respectively) depending on history of exacerbations in the previous year. Evidence suggests that females are at a higher risk of developing COPD vs male pts. The ongoing MISTRAL study was designed to describe the changes in COPD treatment management between the FE or NFE COPD pts9 phenotypes and genders. Here, we present the description of female population on the first 217 entered pts of the MISTRAL study. Methods The MISTRAL study is an Italian, 3-year, multicenter, longitudinal, prospective, observational cohort study to evaluate pharmacological management of FE and NFE. Pts are defined as FE and NFE, if they had a previous year history of ≥2 and 0 or 1 exacerbations, respectively (GOLD 2011). Male and female COPD pts aged ≥40yrs with a smoking history of ≥10 pack-years were enrolled. Results Of the 1500 planned pts, 217 were included in the first 6 months of enrollment. Among these, 18.4% were women and 81.6% were men. In particular, 55% and 63.1% of the enrolled women and men were non-frequent exacerbators, respectively. Conclusion The preliminary data show a pattern in which the percentage of women affected by COPD that is lower than the expected. No relevant differences between exacerbators distribution was observed. Reference: 1. Donaldson et al Respiratory research 2013, 14:79 2. Viegi, Respiration 2001, 68:4-19 3. GOLD 2011. http://www.goldcopd.com