Perspiration During Exercise in Patients With Stable Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common progressive respiratory condition. Chills in the back region with excessive sweating are common symptoms in COPD patients. The aim of our study was to identify factors associated with increased rates of perspiration in COPD patients.Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study over the course of one year by recruiting 120 COPD patients and 32 healthy controls. All patients underwent pulmonary function testing (PFT) and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). The rate of perspiration was determined during CPET through sweat collection. The relationship between perspiration rate and multiple clinical and physiologic variables was explored through correlative analyses. Logistic regression analysis was used to reveal the multifactorial influence on the risk of acute COPD exacerbations.Results: Results showed that COPD patients were found to have a higher rate of perspiration during CPET than healthy individuals. We observed a direct relationship between perspiration rate and clinical measures of disease severity such as air flow limitations and the number of acute COPD exacerbations. The rate of perspiration was also found to be correlated with several clinical (i.e. number of hospitalizations) as well as physiologic variables (i.e. PFT and CPET parameters). Lastly, we generated a logistic regression model which predicted the likelihood of acute COPD exacerbations with an accuracy of 87.4%. Thus, elevated perspiration rates during exercise are observed in COPD patients, which is also directly correlated with the degree of dyspnea and disease progression.Conclusions: perspiration may be used as a biomarker for disease state with prognostic value.