Abstract
Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a complex disease associated with disturbances of metabolic functions. There has been an intense focus on comorbidities in COPD, including anemia1.
Aim: To investigate the prevalence of anemia in patients with COPD and its association with disease severity and comorbidities.
Methods: Data was collected retrospectively from 96 patients diagnosed with COPD based on the GOLD criteria2. Oxygen saturation, Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnoea score, COPD Assessment Test (CAT), Body Mass Index (BMI) and comorbidities were registered. Blood samples were analyzed for hemoglobin and C-reactive protein (CRP).
Results: Patients were classified in A(n=35), B(n=20), C(n=14) and D(n=29) with reference to the GOLD criteria. Anemia was found in 14% of the patients (13/96). There was an equal distribution of patients with/without anemia in group A vs. group B+C+D but no significant association between COPD severity and the frequency of anemia (p=0.2). Patients with/without anemia were comparable on gender, age, CRP, CAT, BMI and lung function; but significantly different with respect to MRC score (p=0.0009) and comorbidities when comparing patients with 1 comorbidity with those with ≥2 (p=0.03). A significantly higher proportion of patients with concomitant kidney and/or heart disease had anemia compared to those without (p=0.03vs.0.009).
Conclusion: COPD patients with anemia have more comorbidities, especially kidney and heart disease and have more respiratory symptoms than patients without anemia.
1http://www.who.int/vmnis/indicators/haemoglobin.pdf
2Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease UPDATED 2015. www.goldcopd.org.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016
