How Long Can a Person Live with Emphysema?
How long a person can live with emphysema is determined by several factors, including how far their disease has progressed, whether they've stopped the behaviors or ended the exposure to toxic substances that caused the disease, and what treatment they receive.
The Four Stages of Emphysema
The four stages of emphysema are at risk, mild emphysema, moderate emphysema, and severe emphysema. The stage of the disease is determined by symptoms and a measure of how much air the patients' lungs can hold and how quickly they can expel air from their lungs. While any stage of emphysema is likely to shorten a patient's life span, it's possible to live with at-risk and mild emphysema for years with the disease having very little impact on your quality of life. Severe emphysema is diagnosed when a patient has less than 35 percent of normal air flow. At that stage, less than half of patients survive four years. A patient whose air flow has become restricted to only 20 percent of normal and who cannot walk more than 500 feet in six minutes has only a 69 percent chance of surviving even two years. Chronic weight loss in emphysema patients is also indicative of a severely shortened life span.
Ending Exposure
Most cases of emphysema are caused by smoking or exposure to environmental or occupational airborne pollutants. The best way to halt the progression of the disease and extend life expectancy is to quit smoking or end the exposure to pollutants as quickly as possible. The damage already done is not reversible, but this one single act has the ability to radically slow the progression of the disease if it is still in the primary stages.
Treatment
Unfortunately, emphysema is currently incurable, and treatment options focus primary on relieving symptoms and improving quality of life. There is some research to indicate that supplemental oxygen can extend the life expectancy of patients with low oxygen levels. Research indicates that while pulmonary rehabilitation does not extend life expectancy in emphysema patients, it does improve quality of remaining life. Avoiding exposure to respiratory illnesses can also significantly increase the life expectancy of emphysema patients.
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"How Long Can a Person Live with Emphysema?." Sophisticated Edge. N.p., n.d. Web. . <http://www.sophisticatededge.com/how-long-can-a-person-live-with-emphysema.html>.
Quote: "COPD makes up the largest single category of patients who undergo lung transplantation. Lung transplantation provides improved quality of life and functional capacity but does not result in survival benefit. The lack of survival benefit makes the timing of transplant difficult. The patients selected to receive transplants should have a life expectancy of 2 years or less."
Source: Berj George Demirjian, MD, Fellow, Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
eMedicine from WebMD
Quote: "There have been no large studies to determine emphysema's effect on life expectancy. The largest and best studies have only included a few hundred people. Emphysema staging is helpful, but emphysema still varies widely between two people at the same stage.
Source: WebMD; ; Emphysema: Stages and Prognosis
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