COPD is predominantly a chronic disease but a large number of patients often suffer from acute worsening of respiratory symptoms and lung functions called an acute exacerbation of COPD. Acute exacerbation of COPD has a profound effect on quality of the life and is one of the highly significant causes of death worldwide. In the case of milder diseases, patients can be managed on an outpatient basis, while a patient with severe exacerbations might need ICU care and non-invasive or invasive ventilator support. A clinical prediction tool, which can be easily used on first exposure of the patient to healthcare, can be extremely helpful in prognosticating the disease,

analyzing the severity of illness, and deciding the level of healthcare required for early recovery of the patient, Hence reducing the morbidity and mortality due to acute exacerbations of COPD. This study is aimed at the analysis of DECAF (Dyspnoea, Eosinopenia, Consolidation, Acidaemia and atrial Fibrillation) score in the prediction of hospital mortality in patients of AECOPD in the Indian healthcare setting. The study was conducted in the critical care unit of A.j institute of medical sciences Mangalore from 2018-2019 May. During the correlation of the DECAF score with the in-hospital mortality, It was seen that all patients with scores of 0,1 or 2 at admission were discharged. Out of all the Patients with a score of 3, 8.3% succumbed to the illness while the rest of 91.7% were discharged in a stable state. Out of all the patients with a score of 4, 37.5% died while 62.5% were discharged. However, in patients with a score of 5, as high as 50% succumbed to the current episode of exacerbation. In patients with the highest DECAF score i.e. 6, a huge proportion of patients i.e 75% died while 25% survived. This study concluded that the DECAF score is a simple, robust, accurate, easy to use, and affordable tool to predict prognosis by estimation of in-hospital mortality in patients of AECOPD.

Keywords:DECAF,dyspnea,  eosinopenia, Acedimia, COPD