This Article  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Frederic Speer, MD
Kansas City, Kan

JAMA. 1968;204(5):406.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor:—

Will we ever agree on a single term to describe the diffuse lung damage associated with cigarette smoking?

Here are some terms in current use:

Emphysema

Chronic emphysema

Pulmonary emphysema

Destructive emphysema

Chronic emphysema and bronchitis

Chronic nonspecific lung disease

Chronic obstructive lung disease

Chronic obstructive airway disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive ventilatory disease

Chronic obstructive bronchopulmonary disease

Irreversible general obstructive lung disease

Obstructive ventilatory disease of the lung

Some authors will use one of these terms for one disease and a second term for another disease. If so, it is difficult to find uniformity among the workers in this field as to where the line is drawn.

This disease, whatever we choose to call it, is most certainly important. Let us hope that authors and editors will come to some sort of agreement on naming it. "Emphysema," alone, will certainly not do. There are . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?