Njae, du är på rätt spår. Dels bytte det för att COPD var ett för 'brett' begrepp, och dels blev det förvirrande gentemot humanmedicinen och KOL ja =) Så delvis rätt, men fanns lite andra faktorer med =)
Om du är intresserad har du här förklaringen:
Confusing Terminology:
The term Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has been used to describe the syndrome that is known to the horse owner or trainer as heaves or broken wind. This syndrome, which is recognized in horses that are generally older than 7 years of age, is indeed chronic and associated with airway obstruction. However, the term COPD is also used to describe any form of airway inflammation with more than ten percent neutrophils in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, which does not have an obvious infectious cause, and in which environmental influences are thought to be responsible, at least in part, for the inflammation. Thus the term COPD also is applied to the inflammatory airway disease that affects thirty percent of young racehorses in training. In these horses, there have been no measurements of lung function and thus there is no evidence that they do indeed have airway obstruction. At present, there is no evidence to connect inflammatory airway disease of young horses with heaves of older animals and so it is not wise to use the same term, COPD, to describe both conditions.
The term COPD also causes confusion when veterinarians talk to their physician colleagues. In human medicine, COPD is a chronic airway obstruction seen primarily in smokers. Airway obstruction is to a large degree irreversible, and is due to excess mucus secretion, anatomical changes in the walls of the airways, and destruction of the lung parenchyma that normally keeps the peripheral airways patent. Bronchospasm is only a small component of human COPD and the disease is not very responsive to therapy with corticosteroids. By contrast, in equine COPD (heaves), bronchospasm is the major reason for airway obstruction and is reversible by use of bronchodilator drugs. Mucus accumulation is a feature of equine COPD, but destructive changes in the lung parenchyma are not a major cause of airway obstruction. Airway obstruction is induced by exposure to environmental factors and the disease responds rapidly to treatment with corticosteroids. Equine COPD (heaves) is therefore more akin to some forms of human asthma, especially those that occur in workers chronically exposed to organic dusts for example in red cedar mills, piggeries, or cotton mills.
It is time to develop new terminology to describe equine airway disease. The term COPD should be eliminated and replaced by two terms. Recurrent airway obstruction (RAO) should be used to describe the heaves syndrome of older horses. This name describes the repeated bouts of airway obstruction of varying severity. These horses have a measurable increase in airway resistance and this is largely reversible by use of bronchodilators. Inflammatory airway disease (IAD) should be used to describe the syndrome observed in young horses in which inflammation and mucus accumulation may cause uneven ventilation distribution and impaired performance but in which there is no obvious respiratory distress or measurable increase in airway resistance.