KEY POINTS:
A simple blowing test used routinely on smokers to gauge lung damage can also predict their risk of developing heart disease, a study has found.
By analysing data on smokers published over the last 30 years, researchers at Auckland University and Auckland City Hospital have concluded that the spirometry test used to diagnose smoker's lung, or emphysema, can also predict risks of heart attacks.
The findings have been published in the European Respiratory Journal.
Lead researcher and consulting physician Robert Young believed that the test - when coupled with cholesterol checks - could provide an even more reliable predictor of future heart problems among smokers than cholesterol and blood pressure checks routinely conducted by GPs.
And there is support from leading cardiologist Professor Harvey White for spirometry to be incorporated in health tests for smokers aged 45 and older.
Dr Young is taking the results to GPs to involve them in a trial incorporating the test as a routine part of heart disease screening for smokers. One Auckland practice has already signed up.
"There's a tremendous opportunity here for smokers who are seeing their GP to have the test done, and for the GP to detect early signs of lung damage, and to consider this as an independent risk factor for heart disease."
Dr Young said spirometry had about the same accuracy as a cholesterol test - the cornerstone test in managing and preventing heart disease - and wanted smokers to have these tests from 40 up.
"That's really because we know that the risks of developing heart attacks, and the risk of developing lung complications from smoking, rise rapidly after about 45 to 50 years of age."
Smokers with poor lung function had six to eight times the risk of heart attack compared with non-smokers. They were also at a higher risk than smokers with normal lung function, he said.
He hopes the test will help prompt smokers to quit, and get doctors to initiate preventative treatment for those at risk of future heart disease.
Smoker Maureen Danks took a spirometry test yesterday, and the results have prompted her to try to quit her 46-year habit again.
"I will definitely be giving it another go. It's quite frightening."
The 64-year-old's lung function had declined since she last took the test two years ago, and her lung age was now equivalent to that of an 88-year-old.
But her test results indicate that she does not yet have an elevated risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
Professor White said the study results were interesting. While he did not support spirometry testing as a predictive heart disease tool for the general population, it should be done among smokers.
* The spirometer is available at most GP practices, but smokers who cannot get it through their GP can contact study co-ordinator Raewyn Hopkins, rhopkins@adhb.govt.nz
