Association between Functional Independence Measure and mortality in patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis: A single-center observational study

Abstract

Objectives

Previous studies have identified several predictors of mortality in patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV). However, functional dependence as a predictor of mortality has never been reported. In this study, we investigated whether Functional Independence Measure (FIM) was associated with mortality in AAV patients.

Methods

We analyzed 52 adults with biopsy-proven AAV in Teine Keijinkai Medical Center between January 2000 and March 2019. Adjusted Cox regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the association between three FIM-based groups and all-cause mortality. Estimates were calculated as hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs).

Results

During a median follow-up of 2.3 years (interquartile range, 0.7–4.6 years), death occurred in 15 patients (29%). Compared to the highest-FIM group (91–126 points), the adjusted hazard ratios for the intermediate- (55–90 points) and lowest-FIM (18–54 points) groups were 3.59 (95% CIs, 0.40–32.0) and 15.7 (95% CIs, 2.07–119) for all-cause mortality, respectively. In addition, the lower-FIM groups were associated with higher mortality (p=.0179).

Conclusion

This study suggested that the FIM score is a predictor of all-cause mortality in AAV patients. Future studies will have to investigate whether FIM assessment leads to better outcomes.

Keywords:

• Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis
• Functional Independence Measure
• vasculitis mortality

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.jp) for English language editing.

Human and animal rights: All procedures involving human participants were designed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee at which the studies were conducted (IRB approval number: 2018-277) and followed the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study individually.

Conflict of interest

None.