Cardiac comorbidities are frequently underdetected in COPD patients, and left ventricular size independently contributes to exertional symptoms.
A remarkable proportion of patients with suspicious echocardiographic findings were undiagnosed and untreated, implying an increased risk for an unfavorable prognosis. Cardiac size and function were dependent on lung function and only partially linked to cardiovascular history. Although the contribution of LV size to COPD symptoms was small compared to lung function, it was detectable irrespective of all other influencing factors. However, only the mMRC and SGRQ activity component were found to be suitable for this purpose.
Alter et al. (Sun,) studied this question.