Gil-Guillén et al. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:413 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/413 S T U D Y P R O T O C O L Open Access FUMEPOC: Early detection of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in smokers Vicente Gil-Guillén1*, Domingo Orozco-Beltrán2, Concepcion V Carratala Munuera3, Carlos Plaza-Sirvent2, Patricia Lorca-Amorrich2, Adriana López-Pineda2, María P Vela-Troncoso4, Juan J Soler5, Manuel Yarza-Cañellas6, Antonio Fernández2, Luis Rosado-Bretón6, Carmen Olivares-Bautista7, Alejandro Muñoz-Fernández8 and FUMEPOC Study Research Team Abstract Background: Currently is not feasible using conventional spirometry as a screening method in Primary Care especially among smoking population to detect chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in early stages. Therefore, the FUMEPOC study protocol intends to analyze the validity and reliability of Vitalograph COPD-6 spirometer as simpler tool to aid screening and diagnosis of this disease in early stages in primary care surgery. Methods / Design: Study design: An observational, descriptive study of diagnostic tests, undertaken in Primary Care and Pneumology Outpatient Care Centre at San Juan Hospital and Elda Hospital. All smokers attending the primary care surgery and consent to participate in the study will undergo a test with Vitalograph COPD-6 spirometer. Subsequently, a conventional spirometry will be performed in the hospital and the results will be compared with those of the Vitalograph COPD-6 test. Discussion: It is difficult to use the spirometry as screening for early diagnose test in real conditions of primary care clinical practice. The use of a simpler tool, Vitalograph COPD-6 spirometer, can help in the early diagnose and therefore, it could improve the clinical management of the disease. Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is defined as a preventable and treatable disease with some significant extrapulmonary effects that may contribute to the severity of symptoms in individual patients. Its pulmonary component is characterized by airflow limita- tion that is not fully reversible. The airflow limitation is usually progressive and associated with an abnormal inflammatory response of the lung to noxious particles and gases [1]. The association between tobacco and COPD is well known and the best option to prevent a high risk of suf- fering from COPD for these patients is to quit this smoking habit [2]. By means of epidemiological studies it has been quan- tified that COPD is a common problem and that the fact of being under-diagnosed and undertreated makes * Correspondence: atencion.primaria@umh.es 1Departamento Medicina Clínica, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Campus de San Juan), 03550 San Juan de Alicante, Alicante, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article its prognosis worse [3-7]. COPD is usually classified in 4 stages according to its severity. The latest evidences in COPD have proven that early detection in stages 1 and specially in stage 2 achieve significant improvements in the natural history of the disease [8,9]. Spirometry is currently the standard assessment tool for diagnosing, staging and monitoring disease progres- sion. It is considered the most objective and reproduci- ble measurement of airflow limitation [1]. The ratio of the two measurements (FEV1 ⁄ FVC) is cal- culated to assess a patient’s lung function. In patients with COPD, FEV1 and FVC readings, as well as FEV1 ⁄ FVC ratios, will be lower than predicted (reference) values based on age, sex, height and race. Airflow limitation is clinically confirmed when the FEV1 ⁄ FVC postbronchodi- lator value is < 0.70 [1]. Various types of spirometers may be used in assessing and monitoring COPD. But conventional spirometry is difficult to use in primary care because lack of time and need of specific training. Recently other types of spirom- eters have been introduced that are portable, readily © 2011 Gil-Guillén et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.