Disease Progression Modeling in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Authors: Alexandra L. Young, Felix J. S. Bragman, Bojidar Rangelov, MeiLan K. Han, Craig J. Galbán, David A. Lynch, David J. Hawkes, Daniel C. Alexander, John R. Hurst, James D. Crapo, Edwin K. Silverman, Barry J. Make, Elizabeth A. Regan, Terri Beaty, Ferdouse Begum, Peter J. Castaldi, Michael Cho, Dawn L. DeMeo, Adel R. Boueiz, Marilyn G. Foreman, Eitan Halper-Stromberg, Lystra P. Hayden, Craig P. Hersh, Jacqueline Hetmanski, Brian D. Hobbs, John E. Hokanson, Nan Laird, Christoph Lange, Sharon M. Lutz, Merry-Lynn McDonald, Margaret M. Parker, Dandi Qiao, Emily S. Wan, Sungho Won, Phuwanat Sakornsakolpat, Dmitry Prokopenko, Mustafa Al Qaisi, Harvey O. Coxson, Teresa Gray, MeiLan K. Han, Eric A. Hoffman, Stephen Humphries, Francine L. Jacobson, Philip F. Judy, Ella A. Kazerooni, Alex Kluiber, David A. Lynch, John D. Newell, James C. Ross, Raul San Jose Estepar, Joyce Schroeder, Jered Sieren, Douglas Stinson, Berend C. Stoel, Juerg Tschirren, Edwin Van Beek, Bram van Ginneken, Eva van Rikxoort, George Washko, Carla G. Wilson, Robert Jensen, Douglas Everett, Jim Crooks, Camille Moore, Matt Strand, John Hughes, Gregory Kinney, Katherine Pratte, Kendra A. Young, Surya Bhatt, Jessica Bon, Carlos Martinez, Susan Murray, Xavier Soler, Russell P. Bowler, Katerina Kechris, Farnoush Banaei-Kashani, Jeffrey L. Curtis, Carlos H. Martinez, Perry G. Pernicano, Nicola Hanania, Philip Alapat, Mustafa Atik, Venkata Bandi, Aladin Boriek, Kalpatha Guntupalli, Elizabeth Guy, Arun Nachiappan, Amit Parulekar, R. Graham Barr, John Austin, Belinda D’Souza, Gregory D. N. Pearson, Anna Rozenshtein, Byron Thomashow, Neil MacIntyre, H. Page McAdams, Lacey Washington, Charlene McEvoy, Joseph Tashjian, Robert Wise, Robert Brown, Nadia N. Hansel, Karen Horton, Allison Lambert, Nirupama Putcha, Richard Casaburi, Alessandra Adami, Matthew Budoff, Hans Fischer, Janos Porszasz, Harry Rossiter, William Stringer, Amir Sharafkhaneh, Charlie Lan, Christine Wendt, Brian Bell, Eugene Berkowitz, Gloria Westney, Richard Rosiello, David Pace, Gerard Criner, David Ciccolella, Francis Cordova, Chandra Dass, Gilbert D’Alonzo, Parag Desai, Michael Jacobs, Steven Kelsen, Victor Kim, A. James Mamary, Nathaniel Marchetti, Aditi Satti, Kartik Shenoy, Robert M. Steiner, Alex Swift, Irene Swift, Maria Elena Vega-Sanchez, Mark Dransfield, William Bailey, Anand Iyer, Hrudaya Nath, J. Michael Wells, Joe Ramsdell, Paul Friedman, Andrew Yen, Alejandro P. Comellas, Karin F. Hoth, Brad Thompson, Joanne Billings, Abbie Begnaud, Tadashi Allen, Frank Sciurba, Divay Chandra, Carl Fuhrman, Joel Weissfeld, Antonio Anzueto, Sandra Adams, Diego Maselli-Caceres, Mario E. Ruiz
Journal: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (2019)

Rationale: The decades-long progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) renders identifying different trajectories of disease progression challenging.Objectives: To identify subtypes of patients with COPD with distinct longitudinal progression patterns using a novel machine-learning tool called "Subtype and Stage Inference" (SuStaIn) and to evaluate the utility of SuStaIn for patient stratification in COPD.Methods: We applied SuStaIn to cross-sectional computed tomography imaging markers in 3,698 Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) 1–4 patients and 3,479 controls from the COPDGene (COPD Genetic Epidemiology) study to identify subtypes of patients with COPD. We confirmed the identified subtypes and progression patterns using ECLIPSE (Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Identify Predictive Surrogate Endpoints) data. We assessed the utility of SuStaIn for patient stratification by comparing SuStaIn subtypes and stages at baseline with longitudinal follow-up data.Measurements and Main Results: We identified two trajectories of disease progression in COPD: a "Tissue→Airway" subtype (n = 2,354, 70.4%), in which small airway dysfunction and emphysema precede large airway wall abnormalities, and an "Airway→Tissue" subtype (n = 988, 29.6%), in which large airway wall abnormalities precede emphysema and small airway dysfunction. Subtypes were reproducible in ECLIPSE. Baseline stage in both subtypes correlated with future FEV1/FVC decline (r = −0.16 [P < 0.001] in the Tissue→Airway group; r = −0.14 [P = 0.011] in the Airway→Tissue group). SuStaIn placed 30% of smokers with normal lung function at elevated stages, suggesting imaging changes consistent with early COPD. Individuals with early changes were 2.5 times more likely to meet COPD diagnostic criteria at follow-up.Conclusions: We demonstrate two distinct patterns of disease progression in COPD using SuStaIn, likely representing different endotypes. One third of healthy smokers have detectable imaging changes, suggesting a new biomarker of "early COPD."