[Importance of ventilatory lung function for prediction of survival in elderly persons. Mortality cohort study in...

The objective of the study undertaken among elderly was to assess the strength and importance of biologic predictors of mortality (blood pressure, ventilatory lung function) in comparison with that of sociodemographic variables (age, sex, education), smoking habit, obesity and health self-assessment. The study covered a sample of elderly (698 males and 1211 females), inhabitants of Cracow city center who attended the mass screening x-ray clinic. The sample examined did not include patients of houses for elderly or geriatric wards. At the occasion of the x-ray examination an epidemiologic interview has been taken from each person and basic clinical measurements (anthropometry, blood pressure and ventilatory lung function) have been performed. Statistical analysis of relation between mortality over 5-year period and chosen predictors has been carried out with Cox proportional hazards model and PC BMDP programs. It was found that beside age FEV1 level is the strongest survival predictor among the elderly. Subjects who had better FEV1 by 500 ml showed significantly lower death risk, by 18% in males and 27% in females after allowing for age and height. The results obtained confirmed the expectation that ventilatory lung function is one of the strongest predictor of survival in elderly. In the sample studied the impact of education, smoking habit, obesity, health self-assessment on the mortality experience was not significant. The effect of hypertension appeared to be relevant only in the female group.