[Thr prognostic value of chronic cough, sputum and spirometry assessed by 10-year mortality among 1487 working men (author's transl].

The aim of the present study is to find out whether or not the diagnosis of chronic bronchitis at an early stage of the disease makes it possible to forecast an excess of mortality within 10 years, among 1487 men examined in 1960/61 while they were at work and aged at the time between 30 and 59 years. After having shown the prognostic value of chronic phlegm and spirographic measurements (VC, FEV1.0, FEV1.0/VC), we tried to state precisely their prognostic value by controlling the tobacco consumption and the socio-occupational class, which are bound to them and are themselves prognostic. FEV 1.0 is the most discriminant variable; its reduction is prognostic as young as 35. Survival-rates decrease regularly with the reduction of FEV1.0; this prognostic role seems to remain in all sociooccupational classes and for smokers as well as for non-smokers; it is more evident for the men who had chronic phlegm than in those who did not have such a symptom. It has been impossible to draw clear conclusions about the prognostic value of phlegm on these points because of interaction existing between phlegm and age.