Association of Circulating Proteins with Death or Lung Transplant in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in the IPF-PRO Registry Cohort
Jamie L. Todd, Megan L. Neely, Robert Overton, Hillary Mulder, Jesse Roman, Joseph A. Lasky, João A. de Andrade, Mridu Gulati, Howard J. Huang, Thomas B. Leonard, Christian Heßlinger, Imre Noth, John A. Belperio, Kevin R. Flaherty, Scott M. Palmer, the IPF-PRO Registry investigators
Abstract
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and ultimately fatal disease with a variable clinical course. Biomarkers that predict patient outcomes are needed. We leveraged data from 300 patients in the multicenter IPF-PRO Registry to determine associations between circulating proteins and the composite outcome of respiratory death or lung transplant. Plasma collected at enrollment was analyzed using aptamer-based proteomics (1305 proteins). Over a median follow-up of 30.4 months, there were 76 respiratory deaths and 26 lung transplants. In unadjusted univariable analyses, 61 proteins were significantly associated with the outcome (hazard ratio > 2 or < 0.5, corrected p ≤ 0.05). In multivariable analyses, a set of 4 clinical measures and 47 unique proteins predicted the probability of respiratory death or lung transplant with an optimism-corrected C-index of 0.76. Our results suggest that select circulating proteins strongly associate with the risk of mortality in patients with IPF and confer information independent of clinical measures.