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Who gets Emphysema?

Persons with emphysema are, mostly Men, Women get emphysema, too, but so far, not as often as men. However this will change as women are starting to smoke more, and at an earlier age. A very high percentage of the people who have emphysema smoke cigarettes and have been heavy smokers for many years.

 

How it Attacks

A person with emphysema doesn’t develop the disease suddenly. It comes on gradually. He or she has probably had several very bad colds each winter for the past few years, each accompanied by a heavy cough, and often with chronic bronchitis. The cough often persists between colds and becomes chronic.

The thing that usually brings the patient to the doctor is that he or she has begun to feel short of breath . The patient may think he or she has asthma or heart disease.

Causes of Emphysema

It is believed that emphysema often is a late effect of chronic infection or irritation of the bronchial tubes. These tubes, the bronchi, connect the windpipe with the lungs. The bronchi look like branches of a tree, with the branches becoming smaller and smaller until each one ends in a cluster of tiny air spaces in the lung. From these tiny spaces (alveoli) oxygen enters the blood when air is breathed in, and waste gas (carbon dioxide) is removed from the lungs by breathing out.

When the bronchi become irritated, some of the airways may be obstructed, trapping air in the lung beyond them. Or the walls of the tiny air spaces may tear, for various reasons. The small blood vessels in the walls disappear. Less contact between blood and air results.

If infection or irritation continues or is repeated for a long time and the stretching and destruction of the walls of the air spaces goes on, the lungs as a whole may become enlarged, at the same time becoming less efficient in exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. Enlarged lungs is what gives the disease its name, emphysema (which is a Greek word meaning "Inflation").

Cigarette smoking contributes to the destructive processes that end up as emphysema.

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