PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Yuksel Kaplan AU - Gazi Gulbas AU - Hilal Ermis AU - Ozden Kamisli AU - Suat Kamisli AU - Cemal Ozcan TI - Investigation of neuromuscular transmission in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A preliminary report DP - 2012 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P214 VI - 40 IP - Suppl 56 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P214.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P214.full SO - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40 AB - Introduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is accepted as a systemic disease that affects all systems of the body. There is growing awareness about systemic inflammation and cardiovascular, neurologic, psychiatric, and endocrine comorbidities associated with COPD. Various studies of patients with CODP affecting both the central and and peripheral nervous system, either sequentially or simultaneously, have been reported by electrophysiological studies. Single-fiber electromyography (SFEMG) is an electrophysiological technique of great value in the assessment of neuromuscular disorders. The aim of study was to delineate any dysfunction of NMT by SFEMG in COPD patients.Methods: Sixteen COPD patients without evident clinical signs of muscle involvement and 16 healthy controls underwent SFEMG. Ten to 20 different potential pairs were recorded and individual jitter values calculated. The results obtained from patients were compared with those from the controls.Results: Of 201 individual jitter values of the patients, 15 (7.4 %) were abnormally high, whereas only 1/165 (0.6 %) jitter values from normal subjects were abnormal. Abnormal NMT was found in 6/16 (37.5 %) patients, but in none of the control subjects.Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that subclinical NMT abnormality is present in COPD patients. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore NMT abnormality in patients with COPD, and we believe that further comprehensive studies are needed to clarify whether patients with NMT abnormality have different clinical/laboratory characteristics and prognosis than patients with normal NMT.