More COPD patients in GOLD Group B die due to adjudicated cardiovascular causes than in other groups, while more deaths occur due to respiratory causes in Groups C and D, according to a research study that explored whether or not the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease classifications could predict mortality risk factors.
In order to complete this study, the researchers used “data from the TIOSPIR study, the largest randomized clinical trial in COPD performed to date.” The TIOSPIR study included 16,326 patients. The goal of the current study was to “investigate the ability of different GOLD groups to predict important clinical outcomes in COPD.” They expected “there would be differences in the risk of death, the causes of death, and hospitalizations between groups.”
One of the results of the analysis was finding that “all-cause mortality did not increase consistently from GOLD Groups A-D. There were proportionally more deaths from any cause in Group B than in Groups A and C, although Group D had the highest death rate in total.” However, the risk of death from respiratory causes did increase consistently from Group A to Group D.
The researchers concluded that “Group B patients, with more symptoms and better lung function, have more underlying cardiovascular (CV) comorbidities as well as an increased CV mortality compared to Groups A and C.” They suggest that “particular attention should be given to patients” with high modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scores “who may be at increased risk of CV events and mortality.”
