The Electrocardiographic Characteristics of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Outpatients

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Cardiovascular disease is the most common comorbidities in COPD patients. ECG is the most popular and cheapest cardiovascular disease screening tool. Some research showed the high prevalence of abnomal ECG in exerbation COPD patients, but there still have no research in outpatients. The purpose of this study was to detect the characteristics of ECG in this group of patients.

Materials and Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in University Medical Center. A sample of 112 COPD patients attending outpatient respiratory disease center was selected randomly from June 2012 to June 2013. Patients were also evaluated electrocardiogram along with other investigations.

Results: The prevelence of abnormal ECG is 58% including rightward shiff of the QRS axis (33.9%), rightward shiff of the P wave axis (53.6%), right atrial enlargement (20.5%), right ventricular enlargement (10.7%), right atrial enlargement and right ventricular enlargement (9.8%), clockwise rotation of the heart (41.1%), low voltage QRS complexes (15.2%), arrhythmia (35.7%), right bundle branch block (7.1%), ischemic (17%). Abnormal. ECG increases with each stage, including GOLD I (33.3%), GOLD II (43.2%), GOLD III (65.1%), GOLD IV (78.3%) (p <0,05). The prevelence of abnormal ECG also increase in each group, including group A (27.3%), group B (45.7%), group C (60.0%), group D (71.4%).

Conclusions: ECG changes in COPD patients are common and correlate with the severity of disease. This suggests that COPD patients should be screened routine ECG in addition to to other clinical investigations.