TY - JOUR T1 - Airway wall thinness and COPD: Analysis of spatially comparable airways. The MESA COPD study JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 42 IS - Suppl 57 SP - 210 AU - Benjamin Smith AU - Eric Hoffman AU - Kathleen Donohue AU - Dan Rabinowitz AU - R. Graham Barr Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/210.abstract N2 - The relationship of airway remodelling to COPD is poorly understood. COPD is associated with loss of peripheral airways and reduced airway lumen dimensions, which may introduce bias when sampling airways to evaluate wall thickness. We assessed the relationship between airway wall thickness and COPD using spatially comparable bronchi.The MESA COPD Study recruited smokers aged 50–79 yrs. Spatially comparable airways were defined by 3 approaches:anatomic name, generation number and distance from trachea. Airway dimensions were quantified by CT using APOLLO software (Vida). Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, body size, race and lung volume.Among 314 participants, 47% had COPD. Comparing anatomically matched airways, there were greater odds of COPD with decreasing wall thickness(Table). Similar associations were obtained matching on generation or distance from the trachea. In contrast, airways sampled by lumen diameter were more proximal in COPD compared to controls(p<0.001), and the association with wall thickness was reversed(Table).View this table:Table: Odds of COPD per standard deviation DECREMENT in airway wall thickness (95%CI)Analysis of spatially comparable airways demonstrated increased odds of COPD with decreasing wall thickness. In contrast, sampling airways by lumen diameter resulted in selection of more proximal airways in COPD compared to controls and introduced bias in the assessment of airway wall dimensions. ER -