Abstract: Objective: Infradiagnosis is a characteristic of COPD. Several studies suggest that infradiagnosis is higher in women. COPD-6 is a small, portable electronic device that is easy to use, being a good screening tool. Our objective was to determine and compare the infradiagnosis in women and men in Spain. Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted in a Primary Care centre in Cantabria, in which 61 women and 61 men over 35 years old were recruited consecutively with a history of smoking of at least 10 packs/year and who presented at least one of these symptoms (cough and/or expectoration and/or dyspnea and/or wheezing). A forced expiratory volume in 6 seconds (FEV6) <=0.75 was defined as a positive screening result. Results: The prevalence of infradiagnosis (positive result) in our sample was 32.8%; 95%CI (20.2 to 45.4) in women (N=20) and 27.9%; 95%CI (15.8 to 39.9) (N=17) in men, p=0.56. Restricting to positive results, no statistically significant differences were found in age and tobacco consumption. The mean age of women was 53.70 years [SD=9.80] with a packs/year average of 34.33 [SD=16.70] and in men was 54.71 years [SD=13.49] with a mean packs/year of 41.28 [SD=17.09]. The % of women who had 2, 3 and 4 concomitant symptoms was higher than that of men, although the differences did not reach statistical significance either (p=0.119). Conclusions: The infradiagnostic was slightly higher in women without reaching statistical significance. Approximately one out of three patients had a positive result. Our results suggest a higher cumulative number of symptoms in women with positive screening results, which should be corroborated in further studies.

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