Hematological and Clinical Profiling of Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive airways disease characterized by persistent airflow limitation. Apart from airflow limitation, COPD is associated with systemic inflammation, hematological alterations, recurrent exacerbations, and the presence of multiple comorbidities, each contributing to the severity of the disease. Understanding the relation between clinical presentation, spirometric severity, and hematological indices is important for the advancement of disease evaluation. Objective: To investigate the association of hematological and inflammatory indices with disease severity, dyspnea, and frequency of acute exacerbations. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional observational study in 180 clinically stable COPD patients, diagnosed using the Global Initiative for COPD (GOLD) guidelines. Hematological parameters that were analyzed included hemoglobin, TLC, platelets, RDW, ESR, and CRP. Comparisons across GOLD stages were done along with analysis of factors related to disease severity. Results: Most of the patients, 73.3%, were males aged 50 years or older, and cigarette smoking was the major identified risk factor. The patient population is largely suffering from moderate to severe disease, with a high prevalence of stages 2 (47.8%) and 3 (28.9%) according to the GOLD. The hemoglobin decreased significantly with increasing stages of GOLD (p = 0.001), while TLC, platelets, ESR, and CRP increased significantly (p = 0.01). Conclusion: It is evident that there are serious hematological and inflammatory alterations in COPD, which tend to progress with the severity of the disease. Anemia, leukocytosis, thrombocytosis, and inflammation are highly linked with the severity of dyspnea, the number of exacerbations, and the severity of COPD stages based on the GOLD.