Biomarkers can help predict mortality in patients with COPD

A new study shows that the addition of changes in inflammatory biomarkers to the established clinical predictors of mortality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) improves the predictions. Current variables for predicting mortality include age, body-mass index, airflow obstruction, dyspnea, and exercise capacity, as well as number of hospitalizations. This gave a C-statistic, a measure of how accurate a prediction is, of 0.686. Adding in the observation of biomarkers including white blood cell counts, interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-8 (IL-8), fibrinogen, chemokine (C-C-motif) ligand 18 (CCL-18), and surfactant protein D (SP-D) significantly improved the C-statistic to 0.726. "This is the first study to show that the addition of biomarker levels to clinical predictors in COPD patients adds relevant prognostic information," lead author Bartolome Celli said.