Patient Care

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, after cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke. Furthermore, between 1979 and 1997 COPD was the only major cause of death whose age-adjusted death rate was rising.

The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health, placed the prevalence of COPD in 2001 at 12.1 million, although twice that many have evidence of impaired lung function, indicating that COPD is under-diagnosed. COPD was responsible for 1.5 million emergency room visits and 726,000 hospitalizations in 2000. The NHLBI estimated the total health care cost of COPD in 2004 totaled $37.2 billion, of which $20.9B billion was direct costs and $16.3B billion was the indirect cost.

Percent change in age adjusted mortality between 1965 and 1998. COPD is the only major cause with dramatic increase. COPD is projected to become the third leading cause of US deaths by 2020, surpassing stroke.

The medical community has come to recognize that a high-resolution versatile pulmonary functional imaging modality which does not depend on ionizing radiation, combined with emerging strategies for disease intervention, could radically alter the mortality, morbidity, and health care burden of COPD.

We estimate the potential market demand in 2020 for FDA-approved diagnostic lung scans for individual sufferers for treatment planning and monitoring response to therapy. Of the 12.1 million patients diagnosed with COPD, 2 million represent the greatest cost burden with repeated exacerbations and hospitalizations. COPD prevalence doubled over the last thirty years, a trend that is expected to accelerate. We assume 3 million patients requiring a high level of care, with one-third (1 million) requiring MangiXene™ or MagniLium™ scans annually.