Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma are the most common kinds of respiratory diseases, said Dr Hamidreza Jamaati, scientific secretary of the 7th International Congress on Pulmonary Diseases, Intensive Care and Tuberculosis.
“COPD is a growing problem globally. The disease is predicted to become the world’s third leading cause of death in the near future,” ISNA quoted him as saying.
He also pointed to Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran, the first medical facility in the country to use extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to treat patients with respiratory problems.
ECMO works by extracting blood from a person’s body and artificially removing the carbon dioxide and oxygenating red blood cells.
The congress will be held from October 12-15 at Masih Daneshvari hospital, in collaboration with the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and American Thoracic Society (ATS).
