Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Japan.

In Japan, the term chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has only recently come to be used as it is in Western countries, especially with respect to its classification as a tobacco-related disease. The disease, COPD, did not appear in Japanese government statistics until 1995. The main reason for the nearly 20-year lag behind the West in recognizing this disease was the small number of COPD cases caused by smoking. Cigarette consumption in Japan increased with the increase in personal income that accompanied rapid ecomomic growth from 1955 to 1974. Since approximately 1980, the number of deaths caused by COPD (emphysema) started increasing. Although cigarette consumption stopped increasing after 1995, COPD (emphysema) mortality is still increasing as a repercussion of the earlier increases of cigarette consumption. However, the number of COPD patients and the scale of medical expenditure for COPD in Japan is somewhat smaller than in Western countries.