A study of correlation between body mass index and GOLD staging of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Background: The association between low body mass index (BMI) and poor prognosis of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common clinical observation and it varies with different stages of COPD. Aims: To find out any correlation between BMI and severity of obstruction (Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) staging) of COPD patients. Settings and Design: We conducted a cross-sectional, observational study among 101 male patients of COPD, attending the chest medicine department in our medical college during the period from March 2011 to February 2012. Materials and Methods: We classify the severity of obstruction in COPD patients according to GOLD staging through spirometry. BMI of all the patients was measured. Correlation between BMI and severity of obstruction (post bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 st second (FEV 1 ) % predicted) in COPD patients was determined. Statistical Analysis: Analysis was carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 software for windows. Pearson correlation, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis and post hoc Turkey test were used to determine the relationship between BMI and post bronchodilator FEV 1 %predicted. Results: Mean age of the study subject was 58.18 ± 9.29 years. Commonest age group was 50-59 years (40%). Mean BMI of stage 1 COPD subjects was 26.21, stage 2 was 22.91, stage 3 was 20.78, and stage 4 was 15.71. One-way ANOVA showed that BMI of the patients were decreasing with increasing severity of the disease (GOLD) and it was statistically significant ( P post hoc Turkey test also indicated that there were significant differences present in different GOLD stages of COPD in respect to BMI. Conclusion: There was positive correlation between severity of airway obstruction and BMI in COPD patients.