COPD Outcomes Influenced by Weight

Obesity can lead to worse outcomes among adults hospitalized with an acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a recent study showed.

For their study, the researchers evaluated data on 187,647 patients who had been admitted to the hospital for an acute exacerbation of COPD. Data were obtained via the 2012-2013 State Inpatient Databases of 7 US states.
________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Exacerbation Risk Predictors Identified for COPD Patients
New COPD Classification Questioned in Recent Study
________________________________________________________________________________

Approximately 17% of participants in this cohort had obesity. Results showed that obesity was associated with increased use of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) (12.0% vs 6.5%) and invasive mechanical ventilation (3.5 vs 2.8%), as well as a hospital length of stay of 4 days or longer (57.9% vs 50.3%).

Notably, the researchers found that obesity was actually associated with a lower in-hospital mortality (0.9% vs 1.4%). However, following adjustment for potential confounders, this association was not statistically significant.

“In this population-based study of adults hospitalized with an acute exacerbation of COPD, obesity was associated with increased use of noninvasive and invasive ventilation, increased hospital length of stay, but was not associated with increased in-hospital mortality,” the researchers concluded.”

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

Goto T, Hirayama A, Faridi MK, Camargo Jr. CA, Hasewaga K. Obesity and severity of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ann Am Thorac Surg. 2018;15(2). https://doi.org/10.1513/AnnalsATS.201706-485OC.