• Mengshu Cao, Jeffery J Swigris, Xin Wang, Min Cao, Yuying Qiu, Mei Huang, Yonglong Xiao, and Hourong Cai.
• Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008, China.
• Mediators Inflamm. 2016 Jan 1; 2016: 6940480.

AbstractBackground. The natural history of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is very complex and unpredictable. Some patients will experience acute exacerbation (AE) and fatal outcomes. Methods. The study included 30 AE-IPF patients, 32 stable IPF (S-IPF) patients, and 12 healthy controls. We measured the plasma concentrations of leptin and KL-6. Simple correlation was used to assess associations between leptin and other variables. Plasma leptin levels were compared between AE-IPF and S-IPF subjects, decedents, and survivors. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to display survival and Cox proportional hazards regression was used to examine risk factors for survival. Results. In subjects with AE-IPF, plasma leptin was significantly greater than in subjects with S-IPF (p = 0.0003) or healthy controls (p < 0.0001). Plasma leptin was correlated with BMI, KL-6, LDH, CRP, and PaO2/FiO2 (p = 0.007; p = 0.005; p = 0.003; p = 0.033; and p = 0.032, resp.). Plasma leptin was significantly greater in 33 decedents than in the 23 survivors (p = 0.007). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed leptin (>13.79 ng/mL) was an independent predictor of survival (p = 0.004). Conclusions. Leptin could be a promising plasma biomarker of AE-IPF occurrence and predictor of survival in IPF patients.

19 keywords...

hide…