Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common preventable and treatable disease characterized by persistent air flow limitation that is usually progressive. Concomitant heart disease during the course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is well recognized. Echocardiography helps in early detection of cardiac complications in COPD cases giving time for early interventions.

Aims and objectives: To assess the cardiac changes secondary to COPD by echocardiography and to find out the correlation between the cardiac changes and the severity of COPD as per GOLD guidelines.

Materials and methods: This is a prospective, observational study conducted at Department of Respiratory Medicine, Apollo Main Hospitals, Chennai. Adult patients, newly diagnosed as well as known cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were included. The patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria are subjected to spirometry and classified according to GOLD criteria. Trans-thoracic echocardiographic assessments of right ventricular and left ventricular structure and function were done and compared with severity of COPD. Data analysis was carried out by SPSS version 16.0. All ‘p’ values <0.05 is considered as statistically significant.

Results: A total of 62 patients were taken into our study after the patients satisfied the inclusion and the exclusion criteria. Of these, 83.9% (n=52) were males and 16.1 %(n=10) were females. The number of patients in mild, moderate, severe and very severe was 41.9%, 30.6%, 17.7% and 9.7% respectively. 31 patients out of 62 (50%) had pulmonary hypertension of which 21% was mild, 17.7 were in moderate and 11.3% in severe pulmonary hypertension. The frequency of pulmonary hypertension in mild, moderate, severe and very severe COPD was 30.8%, 47.4%, 72.7% and 100% respectively and the correlation between severity of COPD and pulmonary hypertension is statistically significant (p value: 0.007). Frequencies of cor pulmonale in moderate, severe and very severe COPD were 5.3%, 27.3% and 83.3% respectively (p value=0.001).

Conclusion: Pulmonary hypertension is directly correlated to the severity of obstruction or FEV1% of patients with COPD. There is high prevalence of pulmonary hypertension, cor pulmonale and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction complicating COPD. Echocardiography would be a valuable tool in assessment of prognosis and to identify individuals likely to suffer increased cardiac morbidity and mortality requiring immediate treatment.