TY - JOUR T1 - Night time dyspnea in COPD: A study of a general population JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 42 IS - Suppl 57 SP - P4711 AU - Peter Lange AU - Jacob Marott Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P4711.abstract N2 - RATIONALEThe aim of present analyses was to investigate the prevalence of night time dyspnea in patients with COPD selected from the general population and to describe characteristics and prognosis of patients with this symptom.METHODSUsing data from two prospective studies of the general population in the Copenhagen area, we investigated the prevalence of night time dyspnea in 6616 individuals with COPD. The individuals were followed for 5 years with regard to COPD exacerbations, hospital admissions and survival.RESULTSThe overall prevalence of night time dyspnea 4.3 %: 2.1% in GOLD A; 12.9% in GOLD B; 2.6% in GOLD C and 16.3% in GOLD D. Compared with individuals without night time dyspnea, the individuals with night time dyspnea had a lower FEV1, higher day time dyspnea score (mMRC) and higher prevalence of bronchitis and wheezing.During the follow-up, we observed that presence of night time dyspnea after adjustment for age and sex was associated with a 2.3 (95% CI: 1.7-3.0) times higher risk of COPD exacerbation, 3.2 (2.3-4.4) times higher risk of COPD hospital admission and 1.7 (1.2-2.3) times higher risk of death. After further adjustment for FEV1 in % of predicted, day time dyspnea and frequent exacerbations, the relative risk of future exacerbations connected with night time dyspnea was reduced to 1.3 (CI: 1.0-1.8), the risk of future COPD admissions to 1.4 (CI: 1.0-2.0) and the risk of death to 1.1 (CI: 0.8-1.6)CONCLUSIONThe prevalence of night time dyspnea in COPD increases with disease severity. Night time dyspnea is a significant predictor of poor prognosis with regard to exacerbations, hospital admissions and survivalFunding: an unrestricted grant from Almirall. ER -