RT Journal
A1 Bischoff EW, Crockett AJ, Schermer TJ
T1 Trends in population burden of copd: Actual facts or fallacies?
JF Archives of Internal Medicine
JO Archives of Internal Medicine
YR 2010
FD August 9
VO 170
IS 15
SP 1408
OP 1410
DO 10.1001/archinternmed.2010.259
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2010.259
AB 
In the time between submission and publication of the article,1 we have published COPD prevalence data from a primary care database in the Netherlands.2 The sex-stratified prevalence trends as reported by Gershon et al1 contradict our (and others’) findings: while their graphs show consistently higher prevalence rates in women, our 30-year trend study shows higher rates in men. Our data clearly show that women are catching up with men in terms of COPD prevalence (Figure), while the figures presented by Gershon et al1 show the exact opposite. Apart from an error in the male and female labeling in the graphs, we cannot think of a plausible explanation for the remarkable and divergent finding that COPD prevalence is higher in Canadian women.