TOKYO (AP) - International health officials announced plans on Wednesday to battle a growing killer: chronic obstructive lung disease.

Officials from the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization presented guidelines for the diagnosis, management and prevention of the disease.

The initiative calls for improving assessment and monitoring of patients, preventing risk factors and increasing awareness.

Triggers for the illness include smoking, secondhand smoke, air pollution and inhaling dust and fumes in the workplace. It includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It progressively reduces the amount of air that the lungs can hold and is considered largely untreatable.

People in developing countries, where smoking is on the rise, are particularly at risk, and women tend to be more vulnerable because they inhale pollutants in the home from heating and cooking fuels.

Moves to fight it have so far been inadequate, said WHO official Nikolai Khaltaev, in light of its pace of increase.

''We needed to develop global guidelines,'' he added.

The disease ranked as the fourth most common cause of death in 2000 after coronary heart disease, cancer and stroke, claiming 2.74 million lives, WHO said.

It is the 12th most common disease worldwide, and is expected to surge into fifth place by 2002, WHO said.

William Martin, chairman of the American Thoracic Society, said at the news conference announcing the initiative that he expects it to help spur research into the disease's causes and cures.

Christine Jenkins of Concord Hospital in Australia said the most effective way to slow the disease is to prevent exposure to risk factors, particularly smoking.

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