[Event Report] 140th HGPI Seminar 'Importance of Early Detection to Reduce the Burden of COPD: Prospects for Respiratory Medicine Connecting Clinical Practice and Policy'

At the 140th HGPI Seminar, Professor Shigeo Muro of the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nara Medical University, delivered a lecture on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). He shared insights into the disease burden of COPD, barriers hindering early detection, and discussed feasible early detection models and regional collaboration for 2032.

Key Points

・ COPD is a highly prevalent disease caused and progressed by smoking and air pollution. It is associated with increased risks of frailty and cardiovascular diseases, imposing not only pulmonary but also significant social and medical burdens.

・ The lungs have functional reserves, and individuals unconsciously adopt behaviors to avoid respiratory distress, making COPD symptoms difficult to self-recognize. This is a major barrier to early detection, often leading to advanced frailty by the time of diagnosis.

・ The Japanese Respiratory Society's 'Komorebi 2032' project promotes realistic early detection strategies to reduce COPD mortality by 2032, including the use of screening questionnaires (COPD-PS), analysis of existing CT images, and identification of potential patients through multi-domain collaboration.

・ To nationally promote COPD countermeasures in Japan, strengthening the policy foundation is essential, including a review of health checkup items and financial support for multi-professional collaboration models. Furthermore, we hope that respiratory diseases will be positioned as a major policy issue alongside cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

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[Event Overview]

Date: January 27, 2026 (Tuesday) 18:00-19:15

Format: Online (Zoom Webinar)

Language: Japanese

Participation Fee: Free

Organizer: Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI)

[Speaker Profile]

Shigeo Muro (Professor, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nara Medical University)

After graduating from Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine in 1989 and working at Tsuchi Kofukai Kitano Hospital, he completed his Ph.D. at Kyoto University Graduate School in 1998 (Doctor of Medical Science). After serving as a researcher at McGill University Meakins-Christie Laboratories and as a lecturer and associate professor at Kyoto University, he assumed his current position in 2018. He serves as a standing director and chairman of the Insurance Committee of the Japanese Respiratory Society, and has served as editor-in-chief and vice-chairman for the 5th to 7th editions of the society's 'Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of COPD'. He is also the chairman of the 2nd edition (published in 2024) of the 'Handbook for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Asthma and COPD Overlap'. He is actively involved in the society's 'Komorebi 2032' project, which aims to reduce COPD mortality. He received the 1st Prize of the 42nd Baelz Prize (2005) and the Japanese Respiratory Society Kumagai Award (2014).

About the Health and Global Policy Institute: https://hgpi.org/

The Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) is a non-profit, independent, non-partisan private medical policy think tank established in 2004. To realize citizen-led healthcare policy, as an independent think tank, it has brought together a wide range of stakeholders and provided policy options to society. Without being bound by the positions of specific political parties or organizations, it maintains independence and provides new ideas and values from a broad perspective for a fair and healthy society. Since its establishment, it has promptly identified themes that were not sufficiently discussed at the time, such as women's health, cancer control, dementia, antimicrobial resistance, regenerative medicine, and global health, as policy issues, contributing to the formation of legal systems and national strategies, and their reflection in international policy discussions. These continuous efforts have received a certain level of recognition from domestic and international policy stakeholders and international organizations, and HGPI continues to participate in international dialogues as a Japan-originated medical policy think tank.

We will continue to work with you to present effective healthcare policy options not only in Japan but also to the world, and to solve global health and medical challenges.

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