Abstract

Dr. Farhana Kosar*, Dr. Muhammad Ikram and Dr. Feryal Qaisar

ABSTRACT

Objective: To determine the frequency of atrial fibrillation in cases of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Material and methods: This was a cross sectional study and was done at Department of Pulmonology, Nishtar Hospital Multan, from July to December 2018. In this study, the cases of both gender with age range 30 to 70 years were included. COPD was labelled according to COPD GOLD guidelines 2018. The cases with COPD of at least one year irrespective of its etiology were included. The case with already suffering from ischemic heart disease, having any valvular lesion and electrolyte imbalance were excluded. Then these cases underwent ECG and atrial fibrillation was labelled by the absence of t wave and irregular R-R interval on standard 12 lead ECG. Results: In this study, there were 100 cases of COPD with mean age was 61.34±8.23 years. There were 78 (78%) males and 22 (22%) females. There were 40 (40%) hypertensive and 29 (29%) diabetic cases in present study. Atrial fibrillation was noted in 18 (18%) of cases with COPD. There was no significant difference in terms of age groups in COPD with p= 0.76. A fib. was significantly high both in cases DM and HTN where it was seen in 6 (20.69%) of cases and 10 (25%) of cases out of their respective groups with p values of 0.05 and 0.001. Conclusion: Atrial fibrillation is not that uncommon arrhythmia detected in COPD cases and is significantly high in cases with DM and HTN.