ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1519102
Clinical characteristics and economic burden of hospitalized patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Chinese Yi population
Provisionally accepted
Ping Li1
Meng Li2Weiling Cai3
Lian Liu1Dan Xu1
Lei Chen1
Diandian Li1
Mei Chen4Yanqiu Wu1
Yongchun Shen1*
Fuqiang Wen1- 1West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Liangshan Hospital of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine, Xichang, Sichuan, China
- 3Luo Jiang District People's Hospital, Deyang, China
- 4Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Key Laboratory of Acupuncture for Senile Disease, ChengDu, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The study aimed to compare the clinical characteristics and economic burden of Yi and Han hospitalized patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD).The patients hospitalized for AECOPD were retrospectively enrolled at the Hospital of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, China, from January 2020 to October 2022. Data regarding the characteristics, treatment, clinical outcomes, and economic burden of Yi and Han AECOPD patients included in the cohort were compared and analyzed. Propensity score matching (PSM) adjusted for age and gender differences was used to assess differences between the two groups.Results: Among 685 patients (297 Yi, 388 Han), smoking prevalence was similar (Yi 57.6% vs Han 55.9%, P>0.05). Yi patients were significantly younger (66.3±11.0 vs 76.2±9.9 years, P<0.001) with more females (36.4% vs 27.8%, P=0.017). After PSM, Yi patients showed: 1) lower comorbidity rates (coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, atrial fibrillation); 2) distinct laboratory profiles (higher hemoglobin, platelets, LDL-C; lower D-dimer, PaO2, albumin); 3) reduced ICU transfers (P<0.05) and noninvasive ventilation use (P<0.05); 4) more frequent pulmonary infections (45.1% vs 35.8%, P=0.014) in unmatched analysis.Conclusions: Significant ethnic differences exist in AECOPD presentation and management between Yi and Han populations, independent of age and gender. These findings highlight the need for ethnicity-tailored COPD management strategies in multi-ethnic regions.
Keywords: acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, AECOPD, Chinese Yi population, Clinical Characteristics, treatment pattern
Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 17 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Li, Cai, Liu, Xu, Chen, Li, Chen, Wu, Shen and Wen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yongchun Shen, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.