Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is defined as a chronic, slowly progressive disease characterized by airflow obstruction that dose not markedly change over several months. Clinical observations in patients with COPD have noticed that those patients have muscular pain accompanied with loss in the bone mineral density which can be assured by Bone Densitometry and some laboratory tests.

Aim of the study: To study the use of Bone Densitometry in the early diagnosis of metabolic bone disorders – especially osteoporosis – in patients with COPD before the onset of clinical symptoms.

Methods: The study evaluated bone mineral density (BMD) in 50 patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease by using Bone Densitometry. All patients have been selected randomly from those who were admitted in the Division of Chest Medicine and diagnosed with COPD.

Results: Thirty-seven males and 13 females have been recruited in this study. Patients were classified according to the WHO criteria of Osteoporosis to 4 classes:

i)Normal

ii)Osteopenia

iii)Osteoporosis

iv)Severe Osteoporosis

The classification depends on the T-score of BMD for both lumbar and femur bones. The BMD of those patients was matched with the BMD of healthy control from the same age, gender and race.

Of 50 patients, 4 patients only had normal BMD (4% of all patients), 25 patients (50%) had osteopenia, 23 patients had osteoporosis (46%). None of the patients had severe osteoporosis which should be associated with fractures.

Conclusion: Patients with COPD are at high risk of developing osteoporosis and having clinical symptoms related to that. This study suggests performing BMD test as effective diagnostic method for osteoporosis in patients with COPD; which will help in taking the correct decision for them before increasing the severity of osteoporosis and affecting the quality of life.