Relationship between Severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory systemic disorder that affects the respiratory tract airways and breathing. Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD), which is the inability of the ventricle to fill to a normal end-diastolic volume, may be observed in patients with severe COPD. This study aimed to evaluate LVDD in patients with COPD.

This cross-sectional study included 58 patients under 65 years of age with COPD as the case group. Moreover, 58 patients with normal spirometry and without pulmonary or cardiac disease were included as the control group. They referred to the cardiologist for echocardiography. Patients were tested for C-reactive protein (CRP) and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptides (NT -pro BNP). Data were analyzed with SPSS for descriptive reports of the relationship between variables.

The results showed that LVDD was significantly higher in COPD patients (60%) than in the control group (12.2%). Also, there was no significant relationship between LVDD and BMI in COPD patients. Evaluation of CRP and PRO-BNP showed that the distribution of patients in different diastolic function classes is similar. It was observed that with increasing COPD severity, LVDD severity increased (p-value =0.101). There is a direct relationship between total lung capacity (TLC) and LVDD (P-value <0.0001). In COPD patients, there was a significant relationship between diastolic function and SPAP (P-value <0.0019).

In general, it should be noted that the prevalence of LVDD in patients with COPD is significantly higher than in other people.