TY - JOUR T1 - Should we measure dyspnoea in everyone? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 1547 LP - 1550 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00031114 VL - 43 IS - 6 AU - Robert B. Banzett AU - Carl R. O’Donnell Y1 - 2014/06/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/43/6/1547.abstract N2 - Dyspnoea is defined as “breathing discomfort” [1]. The paper by GrØnseth et al. [2] in this issue of European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) reports the prevalence of dyspnoea in 15 countries throughout the world. There are few studies of dyspnoea in the general population available, so this added information is welcome. The overall prevalence of dyspnoea in their study population was 27%, which is not far out of line with several other studies dating from 1964 to the present [3–5]. Some studies, based on review of medical records, have reported much lower prevalence [6]. However, patients may neglect to report dyspnoea to their clinician because they think it does not reach a sufficient level of importance, or clinicians may fail to record what their patients say. Requiring patients to scale their symptoms can result in more uniform reporting, because the patient does not have to decide how much is reportable, it takes very little time and it facilitates uniform documentation. Busy clinicians may ask “is dyspnoea worth documenting?” One powerful argument for routine assessment is the need to reduce suffering, as with pain. A second argument is the emerging predictive value of dyspnoea in forecasting medical needs.In addition to being prevalent, “dyspnoea” is a powerfully aversive sensation [7] and patients deserve adequate management of this symptom, as passionately argued by Currow et al. [8]. Effective interventions exist and should be used [9–11]; assessing dyspnoea is the first step in managing it. Dyspnoea is frequently overlooked despite its prevalence and the severity of distress it causes [12]. For example, despite having had dyspnoea for months a majority of advanced cancer patients had not received any treatment for it [ … ER -