Endothelial function in COPD vs coronary artery disease and healthy controls: An exploratory study

COPD is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular events and mortality. Endothelial dysfunction is an early event in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases; the gold standard for its measurement is the flow-mediated dilatation (FMD). Aim: To compare endothelial function of patients with COPD, coronary artery disease (CAD) and healthy controls. Methods: 8 male COPD patients and respectively 16 and 14 CAD patients and healthy controls, age and gender matched, were included. We measured: FMD, spirometry and physical activity (PA) using ambulatory monitoring (SenseWear Armband). ANOVAs test were applied to examine differences. Results: As shown in table, compared to the other groups, smoking was more prevalent among COPD. Both patient groups were significantly less PA. Further, after adjustment for smoking and PA, FMD was significantly worse in both patient groups compared to healthy controls. A correlation between number of steps and FMD was found in the whole group (p=0.02, r=44) as well as between METs and FMD in COPD (p=0.01, r=0.89). No correlation was established between FMD and severity of obstruction. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that COPD have an endothelial function worse than healthy subjects but better than CAD patients. These results should now be confirmed in a large study.