Clinical, physiological, and radiological different phenotypes of COPD patients

Abstract

BackgroundCOPD is a heterogeneous lung disorder with multiple phenotypes and endotypes. This study aimed to identify the diverse clinical, physiological, and radiological phenotypes of COPD. Moreover, to provide whether there was a possible relation between FEV1%, FVC%, and FEV1/FVC ratio, [both before and after broncho-dilation with the diameters of the airway at three diverse levels throughout both inspiratory and expiratory phases of respiration].ResultsThis study included 50 cases, that were classified according to the radiological phenotypes into 5 groups [29 cases (58%) were mild [centrilobular emphysema) CLE)], 8 cases (16%) were moderate CLE, 5 cases (10%) were [confluent emphysema (CON)], 5 cases (10%) were [advanced destructive emphysema (ADE)] and 3 cases (6%) were [para septal emphysema (PSE)]. There was no considerable variance in the frequency of COPD clinical phenotypes among the diverse radiological phenotypes. There was a moderate positive correlation between the predicted FEV1% and the corresponding inter-luminal diameter at the selected levels (RB1, and LB3) in the inspiratory phase of respiration (P < 0.001 and p = 0.001 respectively) (r = 0.58, 0.46 respectively). and there was a moderate positive correlation in the expiratory phase of respiration between the predicted FEV1% and the equivalent inter-luminal diameter at the selected levels (RB1, and LB3) (P < 0.001 respectively) (r = 0.62, 0.51 respectively).ConclusionsWe confirmed that COPD is a highly heterogeneous illness, with multiple diverse clinical, physiological, and radiological phenotypes. Furthermore, HRCT can well be allied with pulmonary function tests (PFT).