Lung disease targets women differently then men, Temple Health is out to find out how and why
Knowing what to look for can lead to more early detection and treatment.
Medicine can be challenging, especially when searching for a diagnosis. What can make it even harder is that when it comes to lung disease, the symptoms aren't necessarily the same between men and women.
Temple Health is taking a look at how lung disease presents itself in women.
"The women's lung disease program which is a subgroup of the Temple Lung Center is the first program of its kind in Philadelphia.
It's intended to provide comprehensive services for lung disease just for women," explained Dr. Jamie Garfield, associate professor of thoracic medicine and surgery.
The staff are all women and include: pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons, pulmonary vascular specialists, dieticians and speech therapists. The center's goal is to study why these diseases present differently in women than in men.
"We don't really understand the reasons for the differences. There's some thoughts that its biology and anatomy, but also its most certainly environmental and lifestyle," said Dr. Garfield.
Knowing what to look for can lead to more early detection and treatment.
"Our job is to kind of tease through where there's real underlying pulmonary functional impairment and where there's other things that are contributing," said Dr. Garfield.
It's also important to choose therapies based on where you are in life.
"When your patient in front of you is considering pregnancy or menopause you want to know this when choosing your therapies," she said.
The Temple Lung Center is also recruiting for a number of clinical trials.
"We're enrolling for many trials that are including men and women, but we're looking to explain some of the biologic or you know genetic differences between the way women and men present with different diseases," she said.
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