Frequency of Secondary Polycythemia in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

Objective: Secondary polycythemia is an important complication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but its frequency of occurrence is unknown in our setup. There are many potentially modifiable risk factors to prevent secondary polycythemia. This study was performed to know the frequency of secondary polycythemia in patients with COPD.Methods and Methodology:  This was cross sectional study carried out in the Department of Pulmonology of Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar from October 2015 to October 2016. In this study Patients, diagnosed with COPD of aged 40 years and above were included in the study through consecutive, nonprobability sampling technique. World Health Organization (WHO) software was used to calculate sample size with the assumptions of6% proportions of secondary polycythemia in COPD patients, 95% confidence interval and 7% margin of error. Patients with asthma and diagnosed polycythemia were excluded fromthe study.Results:  241 patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease were enrolled in this study. 112 (46.5%) patients were male and 129(53.5%) were female. Mean age was 63 years (+ 11.38). All the patients have variable duration of COPD diagnosis; 70 patients had duration of COPD <5 years, 57 patients 6-10 years, 35 patients 11-15years, 36 patients 16-20 years, 30 patients 21-30 years, 12 patients 31-40 years while only one patient hadCOPDduration of one year, with the mean duration of 13 (±10) years. Secondary Polycythemia was found in 26 (10.8%) patients. Out of these confirmed case females constitute 11 (4.6%) while rest 15 (6.32%) were male. The duration of COPD was found between 15-30 years in patients with Secondary Polycythemia.Conclusion:  COPD Patients had a significant prevalence of secondary polycythemia, and ignoring this may lead to complications.