Protocol Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Overview

The main objective of the study is to evaluate the predictive factors of the endothelial function to the waning of an acute exacerbation in COPD. It will act to do a multivariate analysis to determine the respective weight of the parameters of the systemic inflammation, of the oxidative stress of the functional respiratory parameters and then functional respiratory parameters. In exacerbated Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients, there is augmentation of hypoxia and the obstructive ventilatory disorders is more important. This is correlated with an increase in C-reactive Protein (CRP) and of inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress. It has been demonstrated that there is an endothelial dysfunction in answer to hypoxia. Since the exacerbated COPD patients are hypoxic in most cases , we suppose they have an endothelial dysfunction during exacerbation. So we think we will find an augmentation of vascular resistances ,shown by a peripheral arterial tone too high. And this, certainly, play a part in physiopathology of the COPD exacerbation.

We want to judge the improvement of the endothelial function remotely to the acute exacerbation (6 weeks). And then we would like to correlate this improvement with the variations of oxidative stress, muscle strength, respiratory function and systemic inflammation. We also would like to find a relation between the new hospitalizations for respiratory exacerbation and the initial value of endothelial function. Then we would like to evaluate the relationship between the cardiovascular risk and the COPD severity.

Conditions