Study of Osteoporosis in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

BackgroundChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease that is thought to result from chronic inflammation that may affect other organ systems. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of osteoporosis in patients with COPD is high and potentially important. Currently, the gold standard to assess osteoporosis non-invasively is dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan. PurposeWe wanted to investigate the prevalence of osteoporosis in a population of patients with COPD and to determine the severity of osteoporosis in correlation with degree of COPD. MethodsThis study was conducted on 50 patients with COPD and 10 healthy subjects as a control group. Study subjects were divided into four groups Group І included 10 healthy volunteers as a control group. Group ІІ included 20 patients with moderate COPD. Group ІІІ included 22 patients with severe COPD. Group IV included 8 patients with very severe COPD. All subjects were subjected to; detailed clinical history, thorough clinical examination, plain chest-X-ray postero-anterior view, ventilatory function tests (spirometry), and measurement of bone density by using DEXA. ResultsThe results of this study revealed significant reduction of body mass index (BMI) in COPD group in comparison with the control group (p value <0.05). As regards osteoporosis, its prevalence in total COPD group was higher than control group and reached 26%, while osteopenia reached 54%. Comparison between the COPD degrees as regards bone mineral density (BMD) revealed that, prevalence of osteoporosis increases with the increase of the severity of COPD from moderate to severe then very severe (20%, 27.3%, and 37.5% respectively). Highly significant statistical correlation was found between T score and FEV1% in COPD group revealing that osteoporosis severity increases with the increase of the severity of COPD. ConclusionsPrevalence of osteoporosis was higher in COPD patients. Prevalence and severity of osteoporosis increased with the increase of COPD degree.