Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease(COPD) is characterized by progressive airflow limitation and a variety of extrapulmonary manifestations. BODE scores assess the overall status of COPD. Multiple inflammatory markers are known to increase in COPD. Our study endeavors to correlate these markers with BODE index to find out a relation between the two. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a single-centric observational open labelled case controlled study which included 50 patients of diagnosed COPD and 50 age and gender matched controls. All patients were evaluated by detailed history, PFT, 6 MWT and calculation of BODE scores. Levels of serum inflammatory markers like Cortisol, TNF alpha, IL-6, LDH and CRP were estimated using standard equipments and methods. OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS: Majority of the patients in the study and control groups were males aged above 40 years. The chief presenting complaints were cough and breathlessness. 38 of the 50 patients had BODE scores of more than 3. All the studied inflammatory markers were significantly higher in the COPD group as compared to the control group. Of all the studied markers, only IL-6 showed a significant correlation i.e. higher IL-6 values were associated with higher BODE scores. No correlation was seen between the other markers and BODE scores. CONCLUSIONS: The significant association of IL-6 with BODE scores indicates that higher values of IL-6 can be taken as a marker of severe COPD. However there is a need to further study if the raised levels of IL-6 are a result of the severe disease or whether raised levels increase the severity of the disease. Also IL-6 as a target for therapy in COPD needs to be further studied.
Published Version
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