Common Lung Diseases in Women

The most common lung diseases in women include:

• Asthma - a disease in which the lung airways are inflamed (swollen) and react easily to certain triggers like viruses, smoke, dust, mold, animal hair, roaches, or pollen. The inflamed airways get narrow and make it hard to breathe. You can have chest tightness, wheezing, shortness of breath, or a cough that never seems to go away or gets worse over time. More women than ever before are dying from asthma because more women have taken up smoking in the last 20 years.

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - a term used to describe two closely related lung diseases, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Often, people have these diseases together. Chronic bronchitis is an inflammation that ends up scarring the lining of the bronchial tubes (tubes that make up the inside of the lungs). Women have higher rates of chronic bronchitis than men. Emphysema causes the walls between the air sacs within the lungs to become weak and break, making it hard for you to feel like you get enough air. While more men suffer from emphysema than women, it is increasing in women. Symptoms can include a cough that never seems to go away or that gets worse over time, increased mucus, a frequent need to clear your throat, shortness of breath, or trouble exercising.

• Lung cancer - when abnormal (malignant) cells divide with control in the tissues of the lung and also can invade nearby tissues or spread through the bloodstream and to other parts of the body. There are two types of lung cancer: non-small cell lung cancer (cancer cells form in the tissue of the lungs) and small cell lung cancer (most often found in people who smoke or who used to smoke cigarettes). See your health care provider if you have any of these signs of lung cancer: a cough that doesn't go away or gets worse over time; constant chest pain; coughing up blood; hoarseness or wheezing; on-going problems with bronchitis or pneumonia; swelling of the neck and face; loss of appetite or weight loss; and extreme fatigue.