Abstract
Introduction
The term idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) refers to a chronic and progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease with an unknown cause, characterized by radiologic and histopathologic findings consistent with usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP).1,2 The incidence of IPF ranges from 3 to 9 cases per 100,000 person-years, predominantly affecting the elderly. 3 Its prognosis is poor with median survival of 3 years from the time of diagnosis. 4 IPF combined with comorbidities such as emphysema, 5 lung cancer 6 and pulmonary arterial hypertension 7 usually has distinguished characteristics.
The term combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema (CPFE) refers to the coexistence of emphysema and fibrotic interstitial lung disease, 5 which was first proposed as a disease entity by Cottin et al 8 in 2005. About 26%–54% reported patients are diagnosed with IPF(5, 9), so we consider IPF combined with emphysema is its common clinical phenotype. 9 CPFE has some distinguished characteristics compared to IPF such as higher frequency in smokers, almost normal forced vital capacity (FVC), lower diffuse capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLco). 5 The prognosis of IPF combined emphysema is also poor, previous researches revealed that its mortality could be better, 10 similar, 11 or poorer 12 compared to IPF alone. Hence, whether existing emphysema affects mortality in IPF is still unclear.
In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to explore whether existing emphysema could affect mortality in IPF.
Methods
Flow diagram indicating the search strategy of this systematic review and meta-analysis is depicted in Figure 1. The protocol was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
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The protocol was registered with PROSPERO:CRD42022378699;https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/ Study selection algorithm.
Search strategy and study selection
MEDLINE, Embase and Cochrane Library databases were searched from January 1st, 1956 to October 29, 2022. The search strategy was using the term “(((CPFE) OR (Emphysema)) OR (Combined Pulmonary Fibrosis and Emphysema)) AND ((((Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) OR (IPF)) OR (Cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis)) OR (CFA))” (Supplemental document 1).
Inclusion criteria
We included studies with (1) patients diagnosed with IPF and IPF combined emphysema according to the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and European Respiratory Society (ERS) statements,1,5 (2) at least 5 patients were included in each group, (3) language was not restricted.
Exclusion criteria
The titles and abstracts of all retrieved articles were independently reviewed by three investigators (Yanhong Wang, RuYi Zou, and Yu Yao). Studies were excluded if: (1) a complete article was not available for review; (2) they involved animal or in vitro studies; (3) they were case reports or reviews; (4) there was an absence of control group; (5) there was overlapping data among the articles. After assessments of 57 studies, a total of 42 were excluded. 38 studies were excluded because of not having sufficient survival data to extract HR. 4 studies were excluded due to IPF with emphysema group included non-IPF patients. Finally, 15 eligible studies were included and analyzed in this systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data extraction
Data were independently extracted by three investigators (Yanhong Wang, RuYi Zou and Cheng Tang). The following variables were extracted from each study: names of the authors, year of publication, duration of study enrollment, participant characteristics (number, age, sex, smoking history, smoking pack-years, baseline pulmonary function tests) and hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality and 95% confidence interval (CI). HRs were not reported in some studies and were extracted using the method developed by Parmar et al 14 based on Kaplan–Meier curves. Disagreement between two researchers were settled by arbitration of the principal investigator (Minjie Lin and Jing Luo).
Quality assessment
All the studies included are observational studies, risk of bias assessment was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. 15 Three investigators (Yanhong Wang, RuYi Zou and Yu Yao) independently evaluated the risk of bias for all studies. Disagreement between three researchers were settled by arbitration of the principal investigator (Minjie Lin and Jing Luo). The threshold for categorizing studies as having a ‘low risk of bias’ was set at a score of ≥5 on the Newcastle-Ottawa scale, while studies with scores <5 were classified as having a ‘high risk of bias’.
Outcomes
The primary outcome of this study was to compare the risk of all-cause mortality between patients with IPF who have emphysema and those without emphysema. The effect size was estimated as hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).
Statistics
From eligible studies, we extracted HR and 95% CI, if HRs were not reported, they were extracted using the method developed by Parmar et al 14 based on Kaplan–Meier curves. The data were aggregated through the utilization of random-effect meta-analyses
The statistical heterogeneity of effect size across the included studies was evaluated using both the Cochrane Q test and the
Results
Out of the 2473 articles identified in our initial search, 2416 articles were excluded based on meticulous scrutiny of their titles and abstracts. Following full-text review, 57 articles remained for consideration, ultimately 15 articles were included in the final meta-analysis.9–12, 17–27 (Figure 1).
Characteristics of the included studies
Summary of included studies.
FVC = forced vital capacity, DLCO = diffuse capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide.
Effect of emphysema on all-cause mortality
For the analysis of all-cause mortality, pooled HR was 1.37 (95% CI, 1.04-1.80) and Forest plot for pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality. Sensitivity analysis. Forest plot for pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in subgroup analysis according to IPF with emphysema patients stratified by DLCO %pre. (1.1.1) DLCO%pre ≥ 40; (1.1.2) DLCO %pre <40. Forest plot for pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in subgroup analysis according to IPF with emphysema patients stratified by FVC %pre. (1.1.1) FVC %pre ≥ 80; (1.1.2) FVC %pre <80. Forest plot for pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in subgroup analysis according to IPF with emphysema patients stratified by geographical distribution. (1.1.1) Asia; (1.1.2) North America and Europe. Forest plot for pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality in subgroup analysis according to IPF with emphysema patients stratified by smoking pack-years. (1.1.1) Smoking pack-years≥40; (1.1.2) Smoking pack-years< 40.




Evaluation of publication bias
The funnel plot revealed an asymmetry in the distribution of publication contributions, suggesting a potential bias among the 15 studies (Supplemental Figure 1).
Certainty of evidence for all-cause mortality
Summary of results for outcome and quality of evidence.
Discussion
This systematic review and meta-analysis included 2605 patients from 15 studies (871 IPF with emphysema and 1734 IPF patients) and found emphysema appeared to increase the risk of all-cause mortality with pooled (HR 1.37 (95% CI, 1.04-1.80) and
Whether existing emphysema increases the mortality of IPF remained controversial. Jiang et al 28 conducted a meta-analysis to assess the survival rate of CPFE versus IPF alone and the results showed similar prognosis. Subgroup analysis by 1, 3 and 5-year follow-up time also showed no difference between the two groups. However, CPFE included pulmonary fibrosis of various etiology 5 and the outcome can be influenced due to confounding bias. Hence, implement a systematic review and meta-analysis to compared IPF with emphysema to IPF alone is necessary. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the prognosis of IPF with emphysema versus IPF alone. Our research revealed that existing emphysema increases the mortality of IPF, which suggested the mortality of IPF with emphysema may decreased if we actively to treat the emphysema. Dong et al ’s 29 study revealed that the utilization of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS)/long-acting beta2-agonists (LABA) therapy enhanced lung function parameters among patients with IPF accompanied by emphysema. Additionally, it reduced the frequency and severity of acute disease outbreaks during episodes. Therefore, for IPF with emphysema, our research suggests that in addition to antifibrotic therapy, the use of ICS/bronchodilators for inhalation therapy or lung rehabilitation, mechanical lung volume reduction, and so on, similar to those used for emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are necessary. However, more high-quality researches should be implemented in the future.
The heterogeneity observed in our pooled analysis of all-cause mortality risk was substantial, prompting a sensitivity analysis to investigate potential underlying factors. We found removing Kurashima et al
10
’s or Ryerson et al
11
’s research could significantly decrease heterogeneity and when we removed them both
Subgroup analysis according to IPF with emphysema patients stratified by lung function, smoking pack-years and geographical distribution showed that DLCO %pre<40, FVC %pre<80, smoking pack-years<40 and North America and Europe location was associated with increased risk of mortality. The results of subgroup analysis did not meet our expectation as previous studies revealed that IPF with emphysema usually had lower FVC %pre and higher smoking pack-years, which are usually associated with severe emphysema.30,31 Lower DLCO %pre was consistent with previous research, which was attributed to the additive effect of emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis on gas exchange. 32 The difference between North America, Europe and Asia has not been described before, which required further exploration. Additionally, all the included studies might have selection bias because critical patients could not complete pulmonary function tests, so the included patients tended to be mild, which might explain some subgroup analysis outcome against our experience.
There are several limitations to our study. First, pooled analysis of cohort studies had high heterogeneity and sensitivity analysis showed two researches might contribute to the heterogeneity. Second, all studies included were cohort studies, which could lead to various bias and don’t have as high level of evidence as randomized controlled trial (RCT) researches or individual participant data meta-analysis. 33 In addition, most included studies don’t display their subgroup average/median follow-up duration, which could also contribute to the heterogeneity. Finally, the sensitivity analysis showed altered pooled outcome after removing one study, which suggested our result was not very robust.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that the presence of emphysema significantly increases the risk of all-cause mortality in patients with IPF (HR 1.37 (95% CI, 1.04-1.80)). However, it is important to acknowledge the limitation of study heterogeneity in our pooled analysis, although the prognosis remains consistent across subgroup analyses. Therefore, we eagerly anticipate high-quality researches will be carried out in this field.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Impact of emphysema on mortality in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Supplemental Material for Impact of emphysema on mortality in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis by Yanhong Wang, Ruyi Zou, Yu Yao, Cheng Tang, Jing Luo and Minjie Lin in European Journal of Inflammation
Footnotes
Author contributions
Declaration of conflicting interests
Funding
Data availability statement
Supplemental Material
References
Supplementary Material
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