Prognostic value of cardiopulmonary exercise testing in patients with systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a severe rheumatic disease of the interstitial tissue, in which heart and lung involvement can lead to disease-specific mortality. Our study tests the hypothesis that in addition to established prognostic factors, cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) parameters, particularly peak oxygen uptake (peakVO₂) and ventilation/carbon dioxide (VE/VCO₂)-slope, can predict survival in patients with SSc.

We retrospectively assessed 210 patients (80.9% female) in 6 centres over 10 years with pulmonary testing and CPET. Survival was analysed with Cox regression analysis (adjusted for age and gender) by age, comorbidity (Charlson-Index), body weight, body-mass index, extensive interstitial lung disease, pulmonary artery pressure (measured by echocardiography and invasively), and haemodynamic, pulmonary and CPET parameters.

Five- and ten-year survival of SSc patients was 93.8 and 86.9%, respectively. There was no difference in survival between patients with diffuse (dcSSc) and limited cutaneous manifestation (lcSSc; p = 0.3). Pulmonary and CPET parameters were significantly impaired. Prognosis was worst for patients with pulmonary hypertension (p = 0.007), 6-min walking distance < 413 m (p = 0.003), peakVO₂ < 15.6 mL∙kg^- 1∙min^- 1, and VE/VCO₂-slope > 35. Age (hazard ratio HR = 1.23; 95% confidence interval CI: 1.14;1.41), VE/VCO₂-slope (HR = 0.9; CI 0.82;0.98), diffusion capacity (Krogh factor, HR = 0.92; CI 0.86;0.98), forced vital capacity (FVC, HR = 0.91; CI 0.86;0.96), and peakVO₂ (HR = 0.87; CI 0.81;0.94) were significantly linked to survival in multivariate analyses (Harrell's C = 0.95). This is the first large study with SSc patients that demonstrates the prognostic value of peakVO₂ < 15.6 mL∙kg^- 1∙min^- 1 (< 64.5% of predicted peakVO₂) and VE/VCO₂-slope > 35.