A modest reduction in lung function is associated with both risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) and non-fatal coronary events, but consistently more strongly associated with future SCD.
A Swedish study presented at the ERS 2021 Congress, assessed baseline spirometry in 28,584 middle-aged people with no previous history of acute coronary events.
The cohort, from the Malmö Preventive Project, was followed prospectively for incidence of SCD or non-fatal coronary events for a mean of 30 years.
Dr Suneela Zaigham, a researcher in cardiovascular epidemiology at Lund University, told the Congress that SCD was an unexpected and devastating event.
“Although sudden cardiac deaths are common, we don’t know enough about who is at risk in the general population. There are links between lung and heart health, so we wanted to investigate whether measurable differences in lung function could offer clues about the risk of sudden cardiac death.”
”We found that a 1-standard deviation (SD) reduction in FEV1 was more strongly associated with SCD than non-fatal CE, even after full adjustments for potential confounders,” she said.
The Hazard ratio (HR) for SCD was 1.23 (1.15-1.31) and for non-fatal coronary events was 1.08 (1.04-1.13), (p = 0.002).
Similar associations were found for a 1-SD reduction in FVC but not FEV1 /FVC.
The results remained significant even in life-long never-smokers (HR for SCD: 1.34 (1.15- 1.55), HR for non-fatal CE: 1.11 (1.02-1.21), p=0.038).