Uncovering Metabolic Syndrome among Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital, India.

Introduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is known to cause various systemic problems including Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). MetS is a group of cardiovascular risk factors. By assessing MetS, one can assess the cardiovascular disease risk. There is increasing evidence of MetS in COPD patients. However, the frequency of MetS and its individual components are not still been clearly shown which is likely to vary in different population.

Aim: To know the extent of association of metabolic syndrome and its components in patients with COPD.

Material And Methods: This study was designed as an analytical case control study. Ninety cases of COPD satisfying the inclusion criteria and 45 healthy volunteer subjects as controls were recruited over 18 months duration. Simple random sampling method was used to select all cases attending outdoor and indoor medicine department. All subjects (cases and controls) were matched for age, sex, occupation and socioeconomic status. Prior to participation in the study, written informed consent was taken from all subjects. All included subjects underwent a detailed history, clinical examination and laboratorial analysis. All subjects were assessed for MetS by using National Cholesterol Education Program-Third Adult Treatment Panel (NCEP ATP III) and International Diabetic Federation (IDF) criteria.

Results: The present study demonstrated Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) in COPD according to NCEP ATP III and IDF criteria as 14 (15.56%) and 30 (33.33%) while there was no association of MetS with controls. The frequency of its component such as abdominal obesity, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, elevated triglyceride, reduced HDL-C and elevated fasting glucose respectively was 71 (78.89%), 25 (26.67%), 12 (13.33%), 18 (20%), 23 (25.56%) and 17 (18.78%) respectively. Dyslipidemia was found in 36 (40%) cases of COPD including 16 (17.78%) cases of elevated LDL cholesterol.

Conclusion: Our study concluded that MetS is frequent in COPD patients as compared to general population. Therefore, a comprehensive medical approach to screen all COPD patients for MetS should be done there to lower the significant risk of cardiovascular events in patients with COPD.