Ricerc@Sapienza

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is currently the fourth cause of death worldwide.
Cigarette smoking is the most well-established risk factor for COPD, but actually only a part of smokers develop the disease, whereas lifelong nonsmokers can develop COPD.
Even if cigarettes contain many toxic compounds which damage the respiratory system, nicotine itself, beside giving addiction, acts as a mediator of lungs damage both directly and indirectly. Thus we hypothesize that, given the same smoking intensity, inter-individual variability in the nicotine clearance rate may affect the actual nicotine exposure, increasing the risk of smoking related disorders as COPD. The individual rate of nicotine clearance is mainly determined by the level of activity of the polymorphic enzyme CYP2A6, which can be easily assessed using a phenotypic assay, known as the Nicotine Metabolite Ratio (NMR). In this study, NMR will be evaluated in a group of smokers with COPD (N=72) and in a group of smokers without COPD (N=72), and difference between group will be tested. Correlations of NMR with specific clinical and functional parameters in COPD and non-COPD smokers will be also investigated.
Identification of smokers at higher risk to develop COPD by a cost-effective assay as the NMR may help to improve preventive strategies including smoke cessation therapy, and the smoker¿s awareness about risk may represents itself a strong motivation to quit smoking.