Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are two common diseases that affect the lung, which sometime may occur together or overlap, which is called asthma-COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS). Our study is to assess the utility of various search procedures or algorithms to best locate general practitioner (GP) confirmed asthma-COPD overlap syndrome cases, using independent expert verification of the GP view and validate these procedures in the primary care medical records database of the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD GOLD). This will be done by the collection of information provided by GPs through a questionnaire. This information will then be examined by two independent physicians who are expert in lung diseases, giving a reliable diagnosis to be compared with the recording of patients with a possible diagnosis of asthma-COPD overlap syndrome within the CPRD database. According to published clinical guidelines, cases of asthma-COPD overlap syndrome are a subset of patients who have features of both asthma and COPD. Our study when performed, would help to establish the best possible method to locate individuals with asthma-COPD overlap syndrome within the CPRD and inform more accurate patient selection in future studies.
The overall aim of our study is to determine the positive predictive value (PPV) of four algorithms among patients assumed to have been diagnosed with asthma-COPD overlap syndrome within CPRD GOLD. In order to achieve this, a cross-sectional study consisting of patients with possible diagnosis of asthma-COPD overlap syndrome will be constructed using these algorithms in which 200 cases will be randomly selected. Diagnostic information about these patients will be filled out by GPs via online questionnaire. The information collected from the GPs will be reviewed by two independent respiratory physicians whose opinions will be considered as the gold standard to assess PPV of an asthma-COPD overlap syndrome within CPRD. The main analysis is calculation of PPVs for each of our four algorithms. PPV is denoted as the proportion of true positives among those assumed to have been diagnosed with asthma-COPD overlap syndrome.
Positive Predictive Value (PPV)
Zhiwei Gao - Chief Investigator - Memorial University of Newfoundland ( MUN )
Joseph Amegadzie - Corresponding Applicant - Memorial University of Newfoundland ( MUN )
Jamie Farrell - Collaborator - Memorial University of Newfoundland ( MUN )
JM Gamble - Collaborator - University Of Waterloo
Mark Wright - Collaborator - CPRD
William K. Midodzi - Collaborator - Memorial University of Newfoundland ( MUN )
Patient Level Index of Multiple Deprivation