Treatable traits in an English cohort: prevalence and predictors of future decline in lung function and quality of life in COPD

BACKGROUND: “Treatable traits (TTs)” is a precision medicine approach for facilitating multidimensional assessment of every patient with chronic airway disease, in order to determine the core traits associated with disease outcomes where targeted treatments may be applied. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of TTs in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and which traits predict future decline in lung function and quality of life (QoL). METHODS: A 4-year longitudinal evaluation was conducted using data from 3726 participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). TTs were identified based on published recommendations. Traits that predicted decline in lung function and QoL were analysed using generalised estimating equations. RESULTS: Overall, 21 TTs, including pulmonary (n=5), extra-pulmonary (n=13) and behavioural/lifestyle risk-factors (n=3) were identified. In multivariate analyses, the traits of chronic bronchitis (β −0.186, 95% CI −0.290 to −0.082), breathlessness (β −0.093, 95% CI −0.164 to −0.022), underweight (β −0.216, 95% CI −0.373 to −0.058), sarcopenia (β −0.162, 95% CI −0.262 to −0.061) and current smoking (β −0.228, 95% CI −0.304 to −0.153) predicted decline in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV(1)). Of the seven traits that predicted decline in QoL, depression (β −7.19, 95% CI −8.81 to −5.57) and poor family and social support (β −5.12, 95% CI −6.65 to −3.59) were the strongest. CONCLUSION: The core TTs of COPD associated with a decline in lung function and QoL were identified. Targeting these impactful traits with individualised treatment using a precision medicine approach may improve outcomes in people with COPD.