The burden and impact of arrhythmia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Insights from the National Inpatient Sample.

BACKGROUND

We aimed to analyze the burden and predictors of arrhythmias and in-hospital mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-related hospitalizations using the nationwide cohort.

METHODS

We queried the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) (2010-2014) databases to identify adult COPD hospitalizations with arrhythmia. Categorical and continuous variables were compared using Chi-square and Student's t-test/ANOVA. Predictors of any arrhythmia including AF and in-hospital mortality were evaluated by multivariable analyses.

RESULTS

Out of 21,596,342 COPD hospitalizations, 6,480,799 (30%) revealed co-existent arrhythmias including 4,767,401 AF-arrhythmias (22.1%) and 1,713,398 non AF-arrhythmias (7.9%). The AF or non-AF arrhythmia cohort consisted mostly of older (mean age~ 75.8 & 69.1 vs. 67.5 years) white male (53.3% & 51.9% vs. 46.9%) patients compared to those without arrhythmias (p < 0.001). The all-cause mortality (5.7% & 5.2 vs. 2.9%), mean length of stay (LOS) (6.4 & 6.5 vs. 5.3 days), and hospital charges ($52,699.49 & $58,102.39 vs. $41,208.02) were higher with AF and non AF-arrhythmia compared to the non-arrhythmia group (p < 0.001). Comorbidities such as cardiomyopathy (OR 2.11), cardiogenic shock (OR 1.88), valvular diseases (OR 1.60), congestive heart failure (OR 1.48) and pulmonary circulation disorders (OR 1.25) predicted in-hospital arrhythmias. Invasive mechanical ventilation (OR 6.41), cardiogenic shock (OR 5.95), cerebrovascular disease (OR 3.95), septicemia (OR 2.30) and acute myocardial infarction (OR 2.24) predicted higher mortality (p < 0.001) in the COPD-arrhythmia cohort.

CONCLUSIONS

About 30% of COPD hospitalizations revealed co-existent arrhythmias (AF 22.1%). All-cause mortality, LOS and hospital charges were significantly higher with arrhythmias. We observed racial and sex-based disparities for arrhythmias and related mortality.