Table 1.
Frequency of SpO2 values ≤ 95% in 372 patients aged 40 years or more diagnosed with asthma or COPD.
| COPD | Asthma | |||||
| SpO2 ≤ 95% | SpO2 ≤ 95% | |||||
| Patient characteristics | Patients, n | n (%) | p-value | Patients, n | n (%) | p-value |
| All | 166 | 51 (31.7) | 206 | 31 (15.1) | ||
| Age (years) | ||||||
| ≥ 65 | 96 | 37 (38.5) | 0.01 | 55 | 14 | 0.01 |
| < 65 | 70 | 14 (20.0) | 151 | (25.5) 17 (11.3) | ||
| Sex | ||||||
| Men | 67 | 21 (31.3) | 0.9 | 75 | 13 | 0.5 |
| Women | 99 | 30 (30.3) | 131 | (17.3) 18 (13.7) | ||
| Smoking habits | ||||||
| Never | 22 | 5 (22.7) | 0.7 | 72 | 13 | 0.7 |
| Previous | 90 | 28 (31.1) | 83 | (18.1) | ||
| Current | 54 | 18 (33.3) | 51 | 11 (13.3) 7 (13.7) | ||
| Coronary heart disease | ||||||
| Yes | 42 | 18 (42.9) | 0.05 | 22 | 7 (31.8) | 0.02 |
| No | 124 | 33 (26.6) | 184 | 24 (13.1) | ||
| Other cardiovascular disease | ||||||
| Yes | 49 | 18 (36.7) | 0.3 | 28 | 4 (14.3) | 0.9 |
| No | 117 | 33 (28.2) | 178 | 27 (15.2) | ||
| FEV1% predicted | ||||||
| > 80 | 37 | 6 (16.2) | 0.01 | 122 | 10 (8.2) | < 0.01 |
| 50–80 | 84 | 24 (28.6) | 78 | |||
| < 50 | 45 | 21 (46.7) | 6 | 17 (21.8) 4 (66.7) | ||
| BMI (kg/m2)a | ||||||
| < 20 | 17 | 9 (52.9) | 0.06 | 4 | 0 (0.0) | 0.3 |
| 20–30 | 103 | 27 (6.2) | 142 | 24 | ||
| ≥ 30 | 34 | 13 (38.2) | 51 | (16.9) 5 (9.8) | ||
| CRP (mg/L) | ||||||
| ≥ 8 | 29 | 12 (41.4) | 0.2 | 29 | 6 (20.7) | 0.4 |
| < 8 | 137 | 39 (28.5) | 177 | 25 (14.1) | ||
| Haemoglobin above normalb | ||||||
| Yes | 16 | 10 (62.5) | < 0.01 | 15 | 2 (13.3) | 0.9 |
| No | 148 | 40 (27.0) | 190 | 29 (15.3) | ||
Notes: p-values denote the significance of differences between categories of patient characteristics assessed by chi-square test. aValue missing for 21 patients. bHb above 16.0 g/dL in women and above 17.0 g/dL in men; Hb values missing in three patients.