Abstract Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease that is
thought to result from chronic inflammation that may affect other organ systems. Evidence suggests
that the prevalence of osteoporosis in patients with COPD is high and potentially important. Currently,
the gold standard to assess osteoporosis non-invasively is dual energy X-ray absorptiometry
(DEXA) scan.
Purpose: We wanted to investigate the prevalence of osteoporosis in a population of patients
with COPD and to determine the severity of osteoporosis in correlation with degree of COPD.
Methods: This study was conducted on 50 patients with COPD and 10 healthy subjects as a control
group. Study subjects were divided into four groups Group included 10 healthy volunteers as a
control group. Group included 20 patients with moderate COPD. Group included 22 patients with
severe COPD. Group IV included 8 patients with very severe COPD. All subjects were subjected to;
detailed clinical history, thorough clinical examination, plain chest-X-ray postero-anterior view,
ventilatory function tests (spirometry), and measurement of bone density by using DEXA.
Results: The results of this study revealed significant reduction of body mass index (BMI) in
COPD group in comparison with the control group (p value