Prevalence of other comorbidities like Diabetes Mellitus, Cardiovascular and Renal in COPD patients in Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Background and objectives- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a major health problem worldwide. The major risk factors for COPD are smoking, exposure to biomass fuel and elder age. Many of them need intensive care unit (ICU) admission due to infective exacerbation. Association with extrapulmonary comorbidities potentiate the morbidity and mortality with increased ICU admission, prolonged ICU stay. Some of the important comorbidities are cardiovascular disease, renal disease and diabetes mellitus. Aim and objective of the study was to determine prevalence of these comorbidities in ICU admitted COPD patients. Methods- This study included 72 numbers of ICU admitted COPD patients in a tertiary care teaching hospital with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Presence of each comorbidity was diagnosed with appropriate clinical examination and investigations and prevalence of each was determined by proper statistical analysis of all data obtained. Results- Prevalence of cardiovascular diseases including hypertension and coronary artery disease was found in 84.72%, which was the most predominant comorbidity. Next prevalent was diabetes mellitus-79.16% and renal disease-44.44% successively. Pulmonary arterial hypertension that results as a direct effect of COPD had a prevalence of 66.66%. Males had higher prevalence of comorbidity (mean 77.2%) than females (mean 55.45%). Patients with age 60 years and above had maximum prevalence of comorbidities (100%). Almost 90% of patients had single or multiple comorbidities. Conclusion- Prevalence of comorbidities are high in three important diseases. Early recognition and management of comorbidities will help in early discharge from ICU with less morbidity and mortality in COPD patients