Luxfer Gas Cylinders is beginning a Europe-wide research project polling COPD suffers on the impact of the condition on their quality of life.
The company manufactures lightweight medical cylinders to help ambulatory patients with COPD to live in their home and have mobility, as well as suppling high pressure gas cylinders.
The company will showcase its cylinders at Medica in Dusseldorf from 18-21 November.
Around 23,000 people die from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in the UK each year – that’s one death every 20 minutes.
Annual global COPD Awareness Day falls on Wednesday 20 November, during the conference and the awareness day promotes healthy lungs.
The progressive disease has no cure and an estimated 1.2 million people in the UK have COPD with two million more undiagnosed. The number of people diagnosed with COPD has increased by 27% in the last decade. Also:
- Lung disease is the third biggest killer behind cancer and heart disease in the UK
- The annual cost of COPD to the NHS is over £800 million, says the NHS COPD Commissioning Toolkit
- The annual cost of lost productivity to employers and the economy due to COPD is £3.8 billion.
A Luxfer spokesman said: “We are investing in and researching in this area as COPD is such a problem nationally and globally. It is estimated 3.17 million deaths are caused by this disease across the world each year. The Global Burden of Disease Study reports a prevalence of 251 million cases of COPD globally which is set to increase with an aging population.”
Around 51,000 COPD sufferers have oxygen therapy in their own homes. Long term oxygen therapy can improve survival rates by 40%, while 20% of COPD sufferers who don’t receive this therapy could benefit from it.
