Epicardial fat thickness is associated with severity of disease in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

K. Kiraz, T. Gökdeniz, E. Kalaycıoglu, A. Börekçi, S. Akyol, A.O. Baykan, A. Acele, S. Karakoyun, T. Seker, M. Gür

Department of Chest Disease, Antalya Atatürk State Hospital, Antalya, Turkey. drkemalkiraz@gmail.com

---

• Respiratory Medicine

OBJECTIVE: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the BODE index is an important tool for the prognostic assessment of COPD patients. It is well known that epicardial fat thickness (EFT) is related to CVD. However, there are very few data about the relationship between EFT and BODE index. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between EFT and BODE index in patients with COPD.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We prospectively included 157 patients with COPD and 45 controls in the present study. All patients underwent pulmonary function tests and six-minute walking test. EFT and other echocardiographic parameters were measured using transthoracic echocardiography on admission. Patients were divided into four quartiles according to the BODE index scores (Quartile-1 (Q1): 0-2 points; Quartile-2 (Q2): 3-4 points; Quartile-3 (Q3): 5-6 points; Quartile-4 (Q4): 7-10 points). High sensitive C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP) and other biochemical parameters were measured in all participants.

RESULTS: COPD patients had higher EFT values compared with control group (p<0.05). When COPD patients were classified according to BODE index quartiles, the highest EFT values were observed in Q1 compared with other quartiles (p<0.05, for all). EFT values showed a decreasing trend from Q1 to Q4. Furthermore, EFT was independently associated with BODE index (β=0.405, p<0.001), Hs-CRP (β=0.300, p<0.001) and diabetes (β=0.338, p<0.001) in multivariate linear regression analysis.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that EFT is independently and negatively associated with the severity of disease as indicated by BODE index in patients with COPD.

Free PDF Download