Comparison of the fixed ratio and the Z-score of FEV1/FVC in the elderly population: a long-term mortality analysis from the Third National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey

Background and objective Despite the ongoing intense debate on the definition of airflow limitation by spirometry in the elderly population, there have only been few studies comparing the fixed ratio and the Z-score of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) in terms of long-term mortalities. In this study, we aimed to identify the proper method for accurately defining the airflow limitation in terms of long-term mortality prediction in the elderly population. Methods Data were collected from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the US. Non-Hispanic Caucasians aged 65-80 years were included. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of both methods were plotted and compared for 10-year all-cause, respiratory, and COPD mortalities. Results Of 1,331 subjects, the mean age was 71.7 years and 805 (60.5%) were males. For the 10-year all-cause mortality, the area under the curve (AUC) of the fixed ratio was significantly greater than that of the Z-score of FEV1/FVC, but both showed poor prediction performance (0.633 vs 0.616, p<0.001). For the 10-year respiratory and COPD mortalities, both the fixed ratio and the Z-score of FEV1/FVC showed comparable prediction performance with greater AUCs (0.784 vs 0.778, p=0.160, and 0.896 vs 0.896, p=0.971, respectively). Interestingly, the conventional cutoff of 0.7 in the fixed ratio was consistently higher than the optimal for the 10-year all-cause, respiratory, and COPD mortalities (0.70 vs 0.69, 0.62, and 0.61, respectively), whereas that of -1.64 in the Z-score of FEV1/FVC was consistently lower than the optimal cutoff (-1.64 vs -1.31, -1.47, and -1.41, respectively). Conclusion In the elderly population, both the fixed ratio and the Z-score of FEV1/FVC showed comparable prediction performance for the 10-year respiratory and COPD mortalities. However, the conventional cutoff of neither 0.70 in the fixed ratio nor -1.64 in the Z-score of FEV1/FVC was optimal for predicting the long-term mortalities.