Evaluation of co-morbidity indices in patients admitted for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

BACKGROUND There is limited and conflicting information on the use of co-morbidity instruments to predict mortality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS We sought to test the validity of the Charlson Index and another co-morbidity instrument, the Adult co-morbidity evaluation 27 (ACE-27), in patients admitted with COPD exacerbations. Co-morbidity scores were obtained by chart review. Information on mortality was retrieved from the Social Security Death Index. We examined the predictive validity of the Charlson and the ACE-27 using survival analysis. RESULTS There were 112 patients eligible for the study. The ACE-27 but not the Charlson predicted survival, after adjusting for age, gender, and smoking history in Cox regression, hazard ratio (95% CI) of 1.99 (1.17-3.39). CONCLUSIONS This study confirms earlier findings that the Charlson Index is not a reliable predictor of mortality in patients with COPD. However, the ACE-27 appears to be useful for predicting survival in this study.