Smoking habit and comorbidity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease constitutes a health problem in Cuba and the world, its prognosis is related to several factors. Objective: To characterize a series of hospitalized patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to age, sex, phenotype, smoking habit and comorbid diseases. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out that included the 296 patients who were admitted to the Internal Medicine Service of the Central Military Hospital "Dr. Carlos J. Finlay" with the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the period of two years. Comorbid diseases were determined, the phenotype given by the clinical presentation of the patients (A, B, C and D) ; age, sex, smoking habit or not, time and amount of smoking. The Charlson comorbidity index was used to assess the associated comorbidity in COPD. Results: 54 % of the patients were male, 96,9 % older than 50 years, 36,1 % phenotype C, and 76,6 % smokers. Hypertension was more frequent in phenotypes B, C and D, in more than 70 %, diabetes mellitus in 73,7 % of phenotype B, and ischemic heart disease in 61,7 % of phenotype D. Conclusions: Most of the patients studied were male, older than 50 years, smokers for more than 10 years and phenotype C. The most frequent comorbid diseases were arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and ischemic heart disease