Abstract
Introduction: Serum SP-D is suggested to serve as a biomarker in various pulmonary diseases, and has been showed negatively correlated to FEV1 in COPD.
Aim: The objective of the present study was to investigate the association between serum SP-D and lung function in normal Danes.
Material and methods: Data of serum SP-D originates from 1,476 self-reported healthy adult twins.
Association between variables were analyzed by using a multiple linear regression model using SP-D as response variable and pre-bronchodilatator FEV1 and FVC as explanatory variables. Intra-pair dependency was taken into account, and data was adjusted for sex, age and BMI.
Results: There was a significant difference in mean serum SP-D levels in smokers with and without obstruction. (p<0.05) See table 1.
The association for SP-D with FEV1 and FVC was found to be negative in smokers (p< 0.001/0.001), but positive in non-smokers (p:0.003/0.002).
Conclusion and perspectives: Findings indicate opposite phenotypic correlation between SP-D and FEV1 in smoking and non-smoking individuals. Further analysis of available data will include multivariate twin modelling to investigate whether there is a genetic correlation between the traits and genetic association analysis to find out whether such a genetic correlation could be explained by single nucleotide polymorphisms within candidate genes such as the SFTPD gene.
- © 2011 ERS