Chronic Bronchitis

To describe a collection of lung conditions (please note these lung conditions can be independent of each other or also in any combination).

• When one is constantly exposed to causes (listed below) making your airways produce mucus and both lead to narrowing of the airways and causing coughs.
• It also causes the airways to become hot, red swollen and inflamed. It then also increases the chance of getting infections and the more constant one is exposed to the causes (below) the more damage to the airways skin lining and it becomes scarred making the airways narrower affecting the lung blood circulation and the way our lungs take in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide (the gases we breath in and out respectively).
• It is called chronic (long term) if one has symptoms longer than three months and mainly occurs in patients over 40 years old.
• This condition occurs more in older people and gets worse over time.

Chronic Bronchitis

Symptoms maybe less severe than an acute bronchitis episode.

• Symptoms caused by long term exposure to chemical and irritants.
• Long-term symptoms lasting from at least three months within two consecutive years  (Chronic bronchitis is defined, in clinical terms, as the presence of a chronic productive cough for 2 consecutive years, lasting for at least 3 months during each year, at the exclusion of other etiologies.

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• Chest tightness or pain
• Persistent fatigue
• Swelling of ankles, feet, and (sometimes) legs (related to heart complications of bronchitis)

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Chronic bronchitis characteristics include the following:

• Patients may be obese.
• Frequent cough and expectoration are typical.
• Use of accessory muscles of respiration is common.
• Coarse rhonchi (continuous low pitched, rattling lung sounds that often resemble snoring) and wheezing may be heard on auscultation (when listening to lungs)
• Patients may have signs of right heart failure (ie, cor pulmonale), such as oedema and cyanosis.
  • Cor pulmonale- abnormal enlargement of the right side of the heart as a result of disease of the lungs or the pulmonary blood vessels. symptoms include ankle and/or body swelling and/or cyanosis (purple lips and/or bluish discoloration to your hands or feet) due to low oxygen levels in the blood.

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Diagnosis Tests

• Spirometry Readings

The Pharmaceutical Journal, PJ October 2020, Vol 305,
No 7942;305(7942):DOI:10.1211/

PJ.2020.20208431

• Using a stethoscope

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Oxygen Saturation test (via Oxygen level meter)

• Oxygen saturation (SpO₂) is an important diagnostic tool and measures the amount of haemoglobin-bound oxygen and free oxygen.
• The partial pressure of arterial O₂ (PaO₂) is measured by arterial blood gas monitoring. In healthy individuals, SpO₂ is usually >95%.
• In patients with chronic lung disease or sleep apnoea, SpO₂ can range between 88–92%.

McNicholas W, Kent, Mitchell. Hypoxemia in patients with COPD: cause, effects, and disease progression. COPD 2011;:199. doi:10.2147/copd.s10611