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

Abstract 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  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.