Article Text
Abstract
Background The impact of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) on survival in patients with fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) is unknown. Given the challenges conducting a large randomised controlled trial, we aimed to determine whether improvement in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD) was associated with better survival.
Methods This retrospective, international cohort study included patients with fibrotic ILD participating in either inpatient or outpatient PR at 12 sites in 5 countries. Multivariable models were used to estimate the association between change in 6MWD and time to death or lung transplantation accounting for clustering by centre and other confounders.
Results 701 participants (445 men and 256 women) with fibrotic ILD were included. The mean±SD ages of the 196 inpatients and 505 outpatients were 70±11 and 69±12 years, respectively. Baseline/changes in 6MWD were 262±128/55±83 m for inpatients and 358±125/34±65 m for outpatients. Improvement in 6MWD during PR was associated with lower hazard rates for death or lung transplant on adjusted analysis for both inpatient (HR per 10 m 0.94, 95% CI 0.91 to 0.97, p<0.001) and outpatient PR (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.00, p=0.042). Participation in ≥80% of planned outpatient PR sessions was associated with a 33% lower risk of death (95% CI 0.49% to 0.92%).
Conclusions Patients with fibrotic ILD who improved physical performance during PR had better survival compared with those who did not improve performance. Confirmation of these hypothesis-generating findings in a randomised controlled trial would be required to definitely change clinical practice, and would further support efforts to improve availability of PR for patients with fibrotic ILD.
- exercise
- idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- interstitial fibrosis
- pulmonary rehabilitation
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Footnotes
Twitter @SabinaAGuler
Contributors SAG, SAH and CJR designed the study. SAG, SAH, MKS, PB, LB, AEH, JB, NH, JW, NM, MK, RG, IJ, BT, KAJ, SAM, KDB, JSS, KS, DA, SPB, JM, VF, CG, PGC and CJR contributed to data acquisition. SAG and CJR contributed to analysis of the data and drafting of the manuscript. All authors critically revised and finally approved the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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