Echocardiography based cardiac evaluation in the patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the most common medical problem in Nepal. Echocardiography based cardiac evaluation in COPD is rare in Nepal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the echocardiography based cardiac function in consecutively admitted COPD patients (507) in medical wards of Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital during 13th April 2007 to 12th April 2008. Male female ratio was 0.9:1. Age (mean +/- SD) was 66.1 +/- 10.9 yr. Brahman and Chhetri ethnic group comprised of more than half of total COPD patients followed by similar number of patients in Newar (22.1%) and Mongolian ethnic groups (21.5%). More than half of the COPD patients were in age group 60-75 years, followed by less number of patients (approximately 20.0%) in both 45-59 years and 75-89 years age groups. Of the total patients (507), 141 patients underwent echocardiographic evaluation. Among them significant number of patients had poor LVEF (29, 20.6%) with statistically significant difference in LVEF (36.0 +/- 10.5 vs. 64.3 +/- 8.5%, p value < 0.01). More than half of the total patients showed features of chronic cor pulmonale (56.3%), followed by valvular heart disease (49.3%), diastolic dysfunction (38.7%) and left ventricular hypertrophy (14.1%). Mild pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) was detected in approximately half of patients (49.1%), followed by moderate PAH in 17.6% patients. Transthoracic echocardiography was found to be very useful to identify various concomitant cardiac abnormalities demanding special treatment consideration in managing clinically COPD like patients.