The benefits of spirometry screening for symptomatic smokers were highlighted last week at the Primary Care Conference part of the European Respiratory Society meeting in Glasgow. During a 12-month spirometry screening project at a Lancashire GP practice, at least a third of 56 symptomatic smokers who were found to have significant airway obstruction quit smoking. Of those with mild COPD, 57 per cent were motivated to give up cigarettes. This compared with around a third of patients with either more severe disease or whose symptoms put them at risk of COPD, but who had normal lung function.

Kay Holt, nurse practitioner at Cleveleys Group Practice, Wyre, concluded that targeting intensive smoking cessation support at patients in the earliest stages of airway obstruction could prevent COPD or at least reduce its potential severity. She now plans to carry out a further study in local pharmacies.