Extract
In the European Respiratory Journal, Maitre et al. [1] analysed 17 290 cases of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) retrieved between 2009 and 2018 in the French nationwide administrative hospital database (PMSI). They demonstrated high rates of mortality, which was almost one third at 1 year. In multivariate analysis, they showed that mortality was increased in patients with malnutrition with the highest hazard ratio: 2.49, 95% confidence interval 2.05–3.04. Malnutrition, present in 33.4% of patients, was extracted from the database using the ICD-10 code. This implies that the malnutrition diagnosis should have been overtly diagnosed and collected in patients’ charts or discharge reports. Because the study used the national health database it was not possible for the authors to report on which criteria was diagnosed malnutrition. We could speculate that body mass index (BMI) below 21 kg·m−2 was probably the main criteria used, since it is the commonest diagnostic tool and the cut-off value for chronic respiratory diseases such as COPD [2].
Abstract
Physicians in charge of patients with chronic respiratory diseases, including chronic pulmonary aspergillosis, should be aware of the high prevalence of malnutrition. Despite simple diagnosis, it is underdiagnosed and associated with worse prognosis. https://bit.ly/3uEgEJn
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: S. Jouneau reports fees, funding, or reimbursement for national and international conferences, boards, expert or opinion groups, and research projects over the past 5 years from Actelion, AIRB, AstraZeneca, Bellerophon Therapeutics, Biogen, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, FibroGen, Galecto Biotech, Genzyme, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, LVL, Mundipharma, Novartis, Pharm-Olam, Pfizer, Pliant Therapeutics, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd, Sanofi and Savara-Serendex, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: M. Kerjouan has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: R. Thibault has received royalties for designing the Simple Evaluation of Food Intake (SEFI) (Knoë, le Kremlin Bicêtre, France) tool, and consulting fees from F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd.
- Received September 10, 2021.
- Accepted September 28, 2021.
- Copyright ©The authors 2022. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org