Chronic Bronchitis in COPD Patients Creates Worse Symptom Burden Regardless of the Presence of Bronchiectasis in the COPDGene Cohort.

Purpose: To assess whether the presence or absence of bronchiectasis has an impact on the patient-reported symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.

Methods: The study included participants from the COPD Genetic Epidemiology Study (COPDGene®) cohort with available high-resolution chest tomography reporting the presence or absence of bronchiectasis (BE+/BE-) and survey data reporting the presence or absence of chronic bronchitis symptoms (CB+/CB-). Patient symptoms based on the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) were then compared for the different groups.