Background:COPD has been accepted as component of systemic inflammatory syndrome. Red cell distribution width (RDW) is a measure of coefficient of variation of mean corpuscular volume which increases in chronic systemic inflammation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the RDW as a predictor of severity of COPD using BODE index.Methods:In this cross-sectional study 107 COPD patients were evaluated by measuring RDW and this was correlated with the severity of disease using GOLD staging.Results:RDW correlates well with COPD patients. Significant correlation of RDW with BODE index (r=0.650, p and It; 0.001), gold staging (r=0.459, p and It; 0.001), 6MWT (r=0.697, p and It; 0.001) were observed.Conclusions: RDW was found to increase in patients with increasing severity of COPD. Hence its potential role as a marker of severity of disease and in predicting risk of cardiovascular disease can be explored.
S167 Expansion of the red cell distribution width and evolving iron deficiency as predictors of poor outcome in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
