Abstract | Arterial blood gas analysis is an important test for determining acid base balance of the body. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is characterized by chronic airflow limitation which is not fully reversible and it can lead to respiratory failure.
Objective: To determine the correlation between arterial and venous blood gases in patients presenting with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Material and Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted at Department of Chest Medicine, Mayo Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. After meeting the inclusion criteria, 100 patients were enrolled. Informed consent was taken and demographic information was obtained. Blood sample was obtained anaerobically from the radial artery and from a dorsal hand vein using 2 separate 5cc BD heparinized syringes with needle size 22G for each patientand pH, PCO2, and HCO3 were analyzed. All the collected data was entered and analyzed on SPSS version 21.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 52.68±10.51 years. Strong relationship was found between the VBGs and ABGs in pH, PCO2 and HCO3 i.e. r=0.913, 0.999 and 0.994 (p-value <0.0001), respectively.
Conclusion: A strong correlation was found among ABG’s and VBGs in patients presenting with COPD.