Impact of anemia in patients admitted due to a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation

Abstract

Introduction:Anemia is a common finding in COPD patients. It has important prognostic implications, since it causes greater morbidity and mortality, a higher degree of dyspnea and a lower exercise capacity.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of anemia in patients admitted due to a COPD exacerbation and its influence on the prognosis of the disease.

Material and methods: Patients with a diagnosis of COPD admitted to our service due to an exacerbation during a period of 2 years were included. Follow-up was carried out during 3 months after discharge.

Results: 143 patients were included (mean age 72.76 ± 9.72 years, 88.9% men, mean FEV1 47.23 ± 19.44%, mean BMI 26.97 ± 4.99 kg / m2). During follow-up, 10 patients (6.99%) died. Eighteen patients (12.6%) had a diagnosis of anemia at admission.10 patients had iron deficiency, 6 patients had chronic disorders and 2 patients had thalassemia. Likewise, during hospitalization 2 additional patients were diagnosed with iron deficiency. Among the patients diagnosed with anemia, 83.3% had visits to the emergency room during follow-up, 83.3% required hospital re-admissions and 25% died. Anemia was significantly associated with visits to the emergency room (p = 0.042) and with hospital re-admissions (p = 0.018) during follow-up, but not with mortality (p = 0.12). Multivariate analysis showed that the existence of anemia was independently associated with hospital re-admission in the first 3 months of follow-up after discharge (OR 7.247; 95% CI: 1.403-37.425), but not with visits to the emergency room.

Conclusions: A 12.6% prevalence of anemia was found among patients admitted due to a COPD exacerbation. Anemia was associated with re-addmissions.