Association Between Serum Total Bilirubin Level and Lung Function Decline in Patients with COPD: Results from a Pooled Study

Abstract

Background: Serum total bilirubin has been reported to have antioxidant properties against chronic respiratory diseases. The objective of our study is to evaluate the association of total bilirubin (TB) with annual lung function decline in COPD patients with different GOLD stages.

Methods: This study used pooled data from two observational and prospective cohorts of 612 COPD patients whose TB levels were measured at baseline. The associations between TB and postbronchodilator FEV₁, FEV₁pred, FVC, FVCpred, FEV₁/FVC, and the rate of their decline were all determined using linear regression models in the total population and strata of GOLD stages.

Results: Serum TB was positively related to FEV₁ and FVC in the total group (β 0.02, 95% CI 0.001~0.02, P = 0.025 and β 0.02, 95% CI 0.002~0.03, P = 0.022, respectively). Additionally, TB was inversely associated with the annual decline in FEV₁ and FEV₁pred (β 4.91, 95% CI 1.68~8.14, P = 0.025 and β 0.21, 95% CI 0.06~0.36, P = 0.022, respectively) when adjusted for multivariables. After stratification, the significant associations merely persisted in COPD patients with GOLD 2 and GOLD 3-4.

Conclusion: Increased TB level was related to less annual decline in FEV₁ as well as FEV₁pred in moderate-to-severe COPD but not mild COPD, which indicated the different status of TB in different COPD severity and the possible role as potential biomarker merely in moderate-to-severe COPD. Future researches to determine whether TB could be served as biomarker for COPD and the mechanisms should be focused on some target patients with a certain disease severity.

Keywords: COPD; GOLD stage; decline; lung function; total bilirubin.