경북 구미지역 대학병원에서 호흡기 장애판정을 받은 환자의 임상 소견

Abstract

Legal pulmonary disability in Korea is decided for chronic respiratory patients who have been diagnosed for a year or more, and the patients haven’t gotten better after more than 2 months of sufficient treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features and progress of those patients who have been diagnosed as having pulmonary disability. We reviewed retrospectively the medical records of the patients who had been decided as having pulmonary disability at a secondary university hospital from 2003 to 2010. The number of enrolled patients was 15 (male:female = 8:7) and their mean age was 62.4 ± 12.1 years. Of them,the number of patients with a class 1 pulmonary disability were 4 (27%), class 2 patients were 3 (20%), and class 3 patients were 8(53%). Their major underlying diseases were tuberculous destroyed lung (n = 7, 47%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n =5, 33%), and bronchiectasis (n = 2, 13%). After decision, 4 patients died: 2 patients were class 1, 1 was class 2, and 1 was class 3. All of these patients died of their underlying pulmonary diseases or combined pneumonia. Further studies are needed to observe the clinical progress and prognosis of patients with pulmonary disability by performing long-term follow-up for a large number of patients.