An observational study in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Emphysema and Endothelial Dysfunction, sponsored by Columbia University. Active, not recruiting. Open to participants aged 45 Years to 84 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-04-23.
Sponsored by Columbia University · Observational
The purpose of the MESA Lung Study is to assess the role of endothelial dysfunction and genetic susceptibility to subclinical COPD and emphysema.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is currently the third leading cause of death in the United States, and morbidity and mortality from COPD continue to rise. Despite the magnitude of the problem, therapeutic options are limited - particularly in comparison to cardiovascular disease. Smoking cessation is essential to the treatment and prevention of COPD. However, although smoking is the principal cause of COPD, only a minority of smokers develops symptomatic COPD and many former smokers develop COPD years to decades after they have stopped smoking. The only other medical intervention proven to reduce mortality from COPD is supplemental oxygen therapy. There is therefore an urgent need for newer understandings of the pathophysiology of COPD and emphysema that might lead to the development of better therapies for COPD.
MESA-Lung is ancillary of the ongoing Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). MESA-lung will utilize the various existing measures of endothelial function that have been already been collected in MESA (flow-mediated dilatation [FMD] and related biomarkers and gene polymorphisms) to test the hypotheses that the endothelial dysfunction occurs in the clinical COPD.
4,131 studies on the registry are indexed under Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive; 697 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 4,359 is above the median of 180 across 1,066 observational studies indexed under Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive.
Browse Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive studies →Columbia University is the lead sponsor of 1,103 studies on the registry; 193 are open to participants now.
Of its 172 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 142 (83%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
MESA cohort
Exclusion Criteria:
MESA-Lung is an ancillary study of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). MESA, established in 1999, is well characterized, multi-ethnic (white, Black, Hispanic and Chinese), and multi-center (Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UCLA, Minnesota,and Wake Forest) prospective cohort study. MESA-Lung included a 60% random sample of the MESA cohort at the six Field Centers in Exam 3 and Exam 4, stratified on race/ethnicity.
Lung Function (FEV1 (L), FEV1/FVC (%))
Time frame: Up to 13 years
Lung Density/Percent emphysema on CT (%)
Time frame: Up to 13 years
No study locations are listed for this record.
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Apr 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive→
Columbia University