DOES CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE AFFECT THE CLINICAL COURSE OF HEART FAILURE?

Heart failure (HF) is the final syndrome in the evo-lution of many heart diseases. Chronic obstructive pulmo-nary disease (COPD) syndrome is an important part of the clinical evolution of many parenchymal and vascular lung diseases. It is known that the downward curve of HF evo-lution and survival is being broken by many cardiac and non-cardiac comorbidities. Very often, there are patients who suffer from both heart and lung disease. The aim of our study was to find out whether COPD has an impact on morbidity, mortality rate and life quality of patients with diagnosed heart failure. The study comprised 256 patients admitted into our cardiology clinic in the period February 2014 -23rd of De-cember, 2015. The patients were included depending on whether they comply or don't with certain criteria. They are divided into groups: HF with COPD and HF without COPD, as well as into functional classes (FC). Quite often, COPD coexists with HF, and they do share several risk factors. Patients with HF belonging to 2nd and 3rd FC and patients with COPD have relatively lower survival level and higher mortality level than patients only with HF in the same FC. Greater collaboration between car-diologists and pulmonologists is necessary in order to iden-tify and manage HF and COPD at the same time.