RESUMO
Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] is a common disease reported to Pulmonology wards and outdoors. Cardiac complications especially atrial fibrillation are common and add to overall morbidity and mortality
Objective: To determine the frequency of atrial fibrillation in patients of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD]
Methodology: This was a cross sectional study carried out at pulmonology ward of Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Medical College Rahim Yar Khan from 1[st] July 2016 to 28[th] February 2017. In this study, 111 patients having COPD were included. Detailed demographic and co morbid conditions like DM and HTN was taken. These cases then underwent ECG and atrial fibrillation was identified. The data was entered and analyzed by SPSS version 21
Results: In this study, total 111 patients were enrolled out of which 94 [84.7%] were males and 17 [15.3%] were females with mean age of 58.16+/-9.94 years. There were 7 [6.3%] cases that has DM and 22 [19.8%] cases has Hypertension. Atrial fibrillation was observed in 16 [14.41%] patients. Atrial fibrillation was seen in 4 [25%] out of 16 cases with DM [p= 0.07]. Among hypertensive patients it was seen in 8 [50%] out of 16 cases with significant p value of 0.001. There was no significant difference in terms of gender and different age groups with p value of 0.27 and 0.17
Conclusion: Atrial fibrillation is commonly seen in cases of COPD and is significantly higher in cases that has concomitant hypertension