CARDIAC MANIFESTATIONS IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE (COPD)

OBJECTIVE: To determine the cardiac manifestations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at tertiary care hospital Hyderabad. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This six month cross sectional descriptive study was conducted from 01-July-2015 to 31 December 2015 in the department of cardiology at tertiary care hospital Hyderabad. All the patients with known COPD (≥2 years duration), of ≥40 years of age, either gender were recruited and entered in the study. The inclusion criteria were patients with history of cough and expectoration of at least three months duration in two consecutive years, have history of shortness of breath for long time with or without cough. The COPD patients were studied through history, clinical examinations, imaging (chest X-ray), electrocardiographically and echocardiogaphically (for cardiac manifestations), relevant laboratory investigations and also by pulmonary function test (spirometry). The frequency and percentages was calculated while the mean ±SD was computed for numerical variables. RESULTS: During six months study period total fifty (50) patients with COPD were evaluated for cardiac events by X-ray, ECG and echocardiography. The mean age ±SD of age (years) and duration of disease (years) for whole population was 62.76±5.87 and 7.87±3.85 while the majority of patients were belonged to rural population 32 (64%) and males 35 (70%) whereas the disease was considered as mild, moderate and severe in 14%, 50% and 36%. The common ECG findings observed were RAD 54%, P-pulmonale 52% and RVH 50% while the common echocardiographic findings observed were pulmonary hypertension 64%, cor-pulmonale 60% and right ventricular dilatation 54%. CONCLUSION: ECG and echocardiography are better tools than clinical methods for detecting right ventricular dysfunction in COPD while the echocardiography is better than ECG in detecting the RV dysfunction in subjects with COPD. Keywords: COPD, Cor-pulmonae, pulmonary hypertension and Right ventricular dysfunction