Frequency of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in Patients with COPD in a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Background: COPD is one of the biggest causes of mortality all around the world. This disease represents significant and potentially rising burden on health services on global level. COPD is thought to rise to fourth rank the list of diseases with highest mortality. It is also expected to rise to 7th number among the diseases with highest burden on the health system by 2030. COPD is the cause of mortality in 2.5 million people all over the world. COPD is commonly associated with cardiovascular diseases, and CVD is the commonest cause of mortality among COPD patients. Objective: To determine the frequency of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) among the patients with COPD presenting at a tertiary care hospital. Methodology: This was a cross sectional study conducted at Department of Pulmonology, Nishtar Hospital Multan, from August 2019 to January 2020. Total 211 patients were selected for the study. Mean and standard deviation were calculated for continuous data while frequencies and percentages were calculated for the nominal data Effect modifiers such as age, gender, obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, duration of disease, smoking, residential status, and socioeconomic status were controlled by stratification and chi-square test was applied, keeping p=0.05 as statistically significant. Results: Of these 211 study cases, 133 (63%) patients were male while 78 (37%) patients were female. Mean age of the patients was 53.81±9.90 years. Diabetes was present in 54 (25.6%), and hypertension was present in 93 (44.1%) of all the patients. Mean BMI was 25.19±2.34 kg/m2 and 32 (15.2%) patients were obese. Of these 211 study cases, 71 (33.6%) were smokers. Dyslipidemia was present in 55 (26.1%) of patients. Deep vein thrombosis was present in 23 (10.9%) of all the patients included in study. Conclusion: High prevalence of deep vein thrombosis was observed in current study in the patients with COPD. Deep vein thrombosis was highly associated with poor control of hypertension, smoking, obesity, and long duration of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]