Prevalence of Anaemia in COPD and Its Association with Smoking

Abstract

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a cause of significant morbidity and mortality throughout the world, being the 4th leading cause of death worldwide. All chronic inflammatory diseases have been known to be associated with Anaemia whereas COPD has been known to be associated with Polycythemia. However recent studies have shown an increased prevalence of anaemia in COPD and it has been attributed to the chronic inflammation associated with the disease. Other factors that might contribute to Anaemia in COPD are malnutrition in severe forms of COPD and the oxidative stress of smoking itself. In this Cross sectional observational study conducted over a period of two years from 2016 to 2018, we have studied the presence of Anaemia in patients of COPD admitted in the ward for acute exacerbation, after excluding cases with other chronic diseases such as Bronchiectasis, Tuberculosis and Carcinoma Lung and also cases of Anaemia related to Haemoglobinopathies. Out of a total of 148 cases of COPD, 107 were included in the study after applying the exclusion criteria and collecting the data from the discharge summaries. We found a total prevalence of anaemia in these COPD cases to be as high as 56% with a prevalence of 62% in males and 37% in females. To find out the association of anaemia with the oxidative stress of smoking in these patients we divided the patients in to one group of active smokers, who had stopped smoking only because of the exacerbation and a group of non-smoker/exsmokers. Only 14 patients were found to be active smokers at the time of admission and of these 9 were anaemic. The odds ratio for active smokers having anaemia was 1.48 (95% Confidence interval ranging from 0.315 to 2.64) showing a significant impact of smoking on the presence of anaemia in COPD patients.

Keywords: Anaemia of Chronic Disease, COPD, Smoking.