Abstract
Objective: The main cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is smoking. COPD is the 4th greatest cause of the death in the world. As the prevalence and mortality rate continue to increase, it is a major issue in preventive medicine.In recent years, it has become possible to treat COPD and with proper treatment, we can prevent decline in pulmonary function and improve the prognosis. To discover and diagnose COPD efficiently at the early stage, it is important to check the pulmonary function in individuals at high risk of airway obstruction. We investigated whether an electrocardiogram (ECG) can be used as a tool for discovering COPD.
Methods: We investigated a relationship between airway obstruction and an abnormal ECG in 13,834 subjects receiving an annual health check-up including pulmonary function testing and an ECG at the Kyoto Preventive Medical Center between January 2007 and November 2009.
Results: In our subjects, those who had never smoked accounted for 53.0%, ex-smokers accounted for 24.7% and current smokers accounted for 22.3%. The prevalence of airway obstruction in the subjects overall was 9.9%. In subjects with a smoking history, there was a significantly higher prSevalence of airway obstruction in those with atrial fibrillation, complete right bundle branch block, incomplete right bundle branch block, premature ventricular contraction, left axis deviation, left ventricular hypertrophy and pacemaker rhythm abnormality.
Conclusion: The prevalence of airway obstruction was higher in subjects with a smoking history and ECG abnormalities, showing that ECG can be a useful tool in spirometry. We recommend that pulmonary function is checked in persons with a smoking history and ECG abnormalities.
