Home noninvasive ventilation in severe COPD: in whom does it work and how?

Background: Not all hypercapnic COPD patients benefit from home noninvasive ventilation (NIV), and mechanisms through which NIV improves clinical outcomes remain uncertain. We aimed to identify "responders" to home NIV, denoted by a beneficial effect of NIV on arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (P_aCO2), health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and survival, and investigated whether NIV achieves its beneficial effect through an improved P_aCO2.

Methods: We used individual patient data from previous published trials collated for a systematic review. Linear mixed-effect models were conducted to compare the effect of NIV on P_aCO2, HRQoL and survival, within subgroups defined by patient and treatment characteristics. Secondly, we conducted a causal mediation analysis to investigate whether the effect of NIV is mediated by a change in P_aCO2.

Findings: Data of 1142 participants from 16 studies were used. Participants treated with lower pressure support (<14 versus ≥14 cmH₂O) and with lower adherence (<5 versus ≥5 h·day^-1) had less improvement in P_aCO2 (mean difference (MD) -0.30 kPa, p<0.001 and -0.29 kPa, p<0.001, respectively) and HRQoL (standardised MD 0.10, p=0.002 and 0.11, p=0.02, respectively), but this effect did not persist to survival. P_aCO2 improved more in patients with severe dyspnoea (MD -0.30, p=0.02), and HRQoL improved only in participants with fewer than three exacerbations (standardised MD 0.52, p=0.03). The results of the mediation analysis showed that the effect on HRQoL is mediated partially (23%) by a change in P_aCO2.

Interpretation: With greater pressure support and better daily NIV usage, a larger improvement in P_aCO2 and HRQoL is achieved. Importantly, we demonstrated that the beneficial effect of home NIV on HRQoL is only partially mediated through a reduction in diurnal P_aCO2.