Abstract
Objective: To study the relationship between clinical, functional and echocardiographic findings in severe COPD patients who desaturate during 6MWT.
Methods: 18 GOLD 3-4 patients who desaturated during 6MWT (SpO2<90%) were studied with pulmonary function tests and Doppler echocardiography, measuring tricuspid insufficiency peak speed and estimating systolic pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP), taking 35 mmHg as cut off to define pulmonary hypertension. Fisher's exact test and t test of Mann-Whitney were used to compare numeric variables. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated, p<0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Eight female and 10 male were studied, mean age 61.8±8 yrs, mean BMI was 24.75 (5) kg/m2, mean FVC was 2.85±0.8, mean DLCO 45.5% (range=31-94), mean walked distance 315 m (range=120-480), the mean systolic PAP was 32.25±8.68 mmHg and 16/18 presented systolic PAP hypertension.
Mean systolic PAP was 26.12 mmHg in 8 patients with BODE 2-4 and 37.37 mmHg in 10 patients with BODE 5 (p=0.0312).
No significant association between systolic PAP and GOLD, FVC, MEP, MIP, DLCO, Tei Index, or basal SpO2 were observed.
There was no significant association between 6MW distance and systolic PAP (r=-0.41; p=0.08) or between DLCO and O2 saturation in the first minute walk (r=0.39; p=0.08).
Conclusions: We found a significant association between systolic PAP and BODE.
Trends without significant association among systolic PAP and 6MW walked distance and DLCO with SpO2 in the first minute were observed.
Further studies are needed
- © 2011 ERS
