Electrocardiographic changes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - An observational study from North-East of India

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has got significant cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The adverse cardiac effect can be picked up early by Electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiography. Here, in this study, we tried to find out the different ECG changes in COPD and its correlation with disease duration, severity and other factors. We conducted a cross-sectional observational study in the Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh for a span of one year where 234 spirometrically confirmed COPD patients had undergone ECG. Most of the patients belonged to GOLD stage III (40%) and P-pulmonale was the most common ECG abnormality (63.3%). Other ECG findings were right axis deviation, right ventricular hypertrophy, incomplete right bundle branch block, S1Q3T3, S1Q3 pattern and Atrial Fibrillation (AF), having an increasing trend of abnormalities with the severity of GOLD stage. Increased incidence of AF is due to severity and longer duration of the disease. AF and right axis deviation occur more in smokers. Low voltage ECG is a nonspecific finding. The ECG changes were well correlated with disease severity and duration.