Relation of Body Mass Index with Arterial Blood Gases in Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract:
Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) exacerbation
results in hypoxaemia and hypercapnoea that can be debilitating to the patient.
Management of acute exacerbation of COPD depends largely on the diagnosis
of hypoxaemia and hypercapnoea. The question lies, which patients have
this hypoxaemia/hypercapnoea during an exacerbation?
Methods: This is a Group comparison study conducted between January’12
to December’12 and included 162 COPD patients with acute exacerbation.
History taking, clinical examination & measurement of BMI were done and
simultaneously investigated with ABG analyses and some routine
investigations.Datawere analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) software.
Results:Patients were grouped into 3 groups: Group I(low BMI group,BMI<
18.5 kg/m2) and Group II(normal BMI group,BMI >18.5-22.9 kg/m2) and Group
III(overweight group,BMI >23.0-29.9 kg/m2).There was no statistically significant
difference between groups regarding demographic data e.g. age, sex, education,
occupation. The number of underweight patientswas 52 (32.1%), number of
patients with normal BMI was 94 (58%)& number of overweight patient is only
16 (9.9%).No obese patient was found(i.e. BMI >30 kg/m2).In Group I Mean
BMI ±SD was 15.73±2.26 kg/m2 (range 11.48-18.46 kg/m2) and in Group II
Mean BMI ±SD was 20.07±1.20 kg/m2 (range 18.7 – 22.8 kg/m2) and in Group
III Mean BMI ±SD was 25.98±2.05 kg/m2 (range 23.0-28.89 kg/m2).
The mean PaO2 was 58.9±16.7 mmHg with range from 32.8 – 91.2 mmHg in
group I, 102.6±50.1 mmHg with range from 32.0 – 256.0 mmHg in group II
and 122.7±48.7 mmHg with range from 53.0 – 223.3 mmHg in group III
respectively which was statistically significant (P<0.05). The mean PaCO2 was…..

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