Publication:

Study on correlation between six minute walk test and BODE index in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is preventable and treatable disease with progressive persistent airflow limitation and enhanced chronic inflammatory response in the airways. Indian council of medical research conducted a study and found that total burden of COPD in India has more than doubled to about 14.84 million in 2011 from about 6.45 million in 1971Methods: It was an open label cross sectional study. It was conducted on patients attending the outpatient department of respiratory medicine, new medical college and hospital, Kota, over a period of one year. 100 COPD patients attending the respiratory outpatient department of GMC, Kota and fulfilling the inclusion criteria’s were included in the study. A diagnosis and severity of COPD was established by clinical symptoms and spirometric data as per GOLD guideline (ratio of FEV1 and forced vital capacity <0.7).

Results We found a significant negative correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient r = -0.664, p< 0.001) between 6 MWD and BODE index in study population.

Conclusions Thus, we concluded that the functional exercise capacity of COPD patients measured by 6MWT deteriorates linearly with severity of the disease assessed by the GOLD staging criteria. Hence we can use 6 MWT for assessing the severity of COPD in place of spirometry where the facility of spirometry is not feasible.