Abstract

Dr. Muhammad Sajid*, Dr. Muhammad Umair and Dr. Zeeshan Ahmad

ABSTRACT

Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an emerging cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly all over the world. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is defined as “mean pulmonary artery pressure of ?25 mmHg at rest”. COPD is one of the most important of pulmonary hypertension. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of pulmonary hypertension in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Methodology: It is a cross sectional study conducted at Department of Cardiology, Nishtar Hospital Multan. In this study we included cases with age more than 40 years and diagnosed patient with COPD for at least 1 years. The cases with primary pulmonary HTN and those with connective tissue disorder and chronic pulmonary edema were excluded. The diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was made on the basis of pulmonary function test with FEV1/FVC ratio of less than 0.75 and the post bronchodilator (with salbutamol 400 microgram inhalation) change of less than 12% in FEV1. Patients were categorized into different severity groups. A total of 100 patients were evaluated for presence of pulmonary hypertension using chest X-ray, electrocardiogram and echocardiography. Results: In this study 100 cases of COPD were included with mean age of 61.21±12.79 years. There were 81% males and all were smokers. Majority of the cases i.e. 51% had severe COPD. Pulmonary HTN was observed in 40% of the cases. It was significantly high in cases that had COPD for more than 5 years where it was seen in 36% of cases. It was also significantly high in cases that had very severe form of COPD affecting 23% of patients. Conclusion: We concluded that Pulmonary Hypertension was present in almost half of cases with COPD and its ratio increases with increase in severity of COPD.