Patients with COPD who also have heart failure, stroke, chronic kidney disease or dementia face a risk of prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) that is more than five times higher than patients with COPD who do not have those comorbidities.
That’s according to a study published in BMC Pulmonary Medicine. Researchers from Chi Mei Medical Center and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan examined data collected from the Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital Research Database, including 3,744 patients diagnosed with COPD between January 2012 and December 2020.
The researchers hypothesized that different comorbidities and the number of comorbidities could influence the risk of PMV in patients with COPD.
The researchers wrote that age, gender and comorbidities were identified as significantly higher risk factors for PMV occurrence in the COPD patients compared to the non-COPD patients. But the risk factors didn’t stop there.
“Beyond age, comorbidities also play a crucial role in PMV in COPD,” they wrote. “It underscores the importance of implementing aggressive treatment and raising awareness about the heightened risk of prolonged ventilation among COPD patients with these specific comorbidities.”
