Sex Differences In Mortality Rate Among Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients With Covid - 19 In South Indian Population

Abstract

Background: Mortality rate among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is influenced by cardiovascular comorbidities and other lung diseases. Clinical scoring systems like BODE index analyze the severity in COPD which assesses four independent predictors, the body mass index (BMI), the degree of airflow obstruction assessed by the Forced Expiratory Volume in one second (FEV₁), the modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnoea scale, and the exercise capacity (6MWT) are helpful to estimate the mortality rate. Covid 19 pandemic, risked the lives of many vulnerable group like chronic lung disease patients. Impaired lung compliance which aggravated with Covid - 19 has been shown to increase the mortality rate along with other comorbidities in many. The present study focus to differentiate how mortality rate reflects in males and females with the severity of Covid-19 by predicting the BODE index.

Design: Cross sectional study

Materials and methods: The study was conducted in COPD patients who had contracted with Covid-19 and those who had not. COPD patients were further categorized based on the severity of the disease by GOLD criteria. Those patients, who were able to walk, met the inclusion criteria.

Results: Consecutive samples of 94 male and 92 female COPD patients with an age group of 55-65 years were included in the study, with and without infected by Covid -19. The difference in BODE index in all the groups were analyzed by unpaired ‘t’ test and the difference of categorical variable in both groups were analyzed by Chisquare test.

Conclusion: There were more difficulties experienced in female population with comorbidities and significant changes noted in four year survival rate with a high mortality score among Covid group compared to non Covid. There were significant changes in most of the variables assessed like FEV1 % pred., FEV1/ FVC ratio predicted, 6MWT (p ≤ 0001).