Chronic bronchitis:
Chapter: 12
Defined clinically as the presence of a chronic productive cough without a discernible cause for at least 3 months out of the year, for 2 successive years. (Yes, this definition is slightly different than what is in your book, but is used widely by clinicians). There are several risk factors, but cigarette smoking is the most important. It is morphologically characterized by hypertrophy and hyperplasia of submucosal glands (which can be quantitated by the Reid Index) and mucous and goblet cell metaplasia. The key change is hypersecretion of mucus in response to chronic injury.
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