Abstract

Introduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common, preventable and treatable disease, that is characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation that is due to airway and/or alveolar abnormalities usually caused by significant exposure to gases or noxious particles. Over the past decade, RDW has been associated with incipient myocardial infarction and heart failure in the general population has emerged as the one of the strongest predictor of poor survival in patients with established heart failure and coronary artery disease.¹² RDW has also been proposed as marker of immune activation correlating with levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-6.The process of inflammation and dysregulated hematopoiesis may be linked, since interleukin6 is important for production of hepcidin in liver and thus may indirectly regulate iron metabolism.^13,14 Hence this study was conducted to observe Red Blood Cell Distribution Width in Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Materials and Methods: Hospital based case control study was conducted on 50 cases each of COPD with and without PH in Sardar Patel Medical College, Bikaner, Rajasthan. Complete blood count and 2D-echocardiography were done, RDW-CV value and pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) were observed.
Conclusion: As the mean RDW-CV values were significantly higher in subjects of COPD with PH than those of COPD without PH in all age groups and both sexes, so we conclude that RDW-CV value can be used as marker to predict PH in patients with COPD in absence of other co-morbidities. Moreover, RDW-CV value also correlates with severity of PH. However, this is a small study and further studies are required on this subject.