Development and validation of a prognostic nomogram among patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in intensive care unit.

Background: Acute exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (AECOPD) contributes significantly to mortality among patients with COPD in Intensive care unit (ICU). This study aimed to develop a nomogram to predict 30-day mortality among AECOPD patients in ICU.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we extracted AECOPD patients from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC-III) database. Multivariate logistic regression based on Akaike information criterion (AIC) was used to establish the nomogram. Internal validation was performed by a bootstrap resampling approach with 1000 replications. The discrimination and calibration of the nomogram were evaluated by Harrell's concordance index (C-index) and Hosmer-Lemeshow (HL) goodness-of-fit test. Decision curve analysis (DCA) was performed to evaluate its clinical application.

Results: A total of 494 patients were finally included in the study with a mean age of 70.8 years old. 417 (84.4%) patients were in the survivor group and 77 (15.6%) patients were in the non-survivor group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis based on AIC included age, pO, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), invasive mechanical ventilation and vasopressor use to construct the nomogram. The adjusted C-index was 0.745 (0.712, 0.778) with good calibration (HL test, P = 0.147). The Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed a significantly lower survival probability in the high-risk group than that in the low-risk group (P < 0.001). DCA showed that nomogram was clinically useful.

Conclusion: The nomogram developed in this study could help clinicians to stratify AECOPD patients and provide appropriate care in clinical setting.