Study on the utility of serum uric acid to creatinine ratio in the management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), is preventable and treatable disease which poses significant public health challenge. The impact of COPD on an individual patient doesn’t depend solely on the severity of airway obstruction, but also on the progression of clinical symptoms. A significant number of COPD patients suffer from tissue hypoxia and impaired oxidative metabolism. Hence this study was done to assess the progression of the disease by measuring the level of serum uric acid (UA) and serum uric acid to creatinine ratio (UA/Cr) in these patients. Methodology: This hospital based cross sectional study was carried out in the department of Respiratory Medicine, in a tertiary care hospital from September 2017 to December 2018 on sixty COPD patients. Serum uric acid and creatinine were assessed with the Uricase and Modified Jaffe’s method respectively. Finally serum uric acid creatinine ratio was calculated. Results: The mean level of serum uric acid (UA) in COPD patients with mild, moderate, severe and very severe obstruction were 2.62(mg/dl), 3.81(mg/dl), 4.53(mg/dl) and 5.72(mg/dl) respectively. The levels of serum uric acid to creatinine ratio in patients with mild, moderate, severe and very severe obstruction were in the mean of 2.24, 3.60, 5.12, and 8.12 respectively. Thus, both serum uric acid levels and serum uric acid to creatinine ratio increased with increase in the severity of airflow obstruction in patients with stable COPD which was statistically significant (p Conclusions: Thus, the levels of serum uric acid and serum UA/Cr ratio is raised in stable COPD patients and correlates with severity of airway obstruction. Thus serum UA/Cr ratio can be a useful marker to monitor the disease severity in addition to spirometric parameters like FVC, FEV1 and FEV1/FVC. Keywords: Serum uric acid, Serum uric acid creatinine ratio, COPD.