AUTHOR=Yeh Jun-Jun , Hung Tuey-Wen , Lin Cheng-Li , Chen Tsung-Tse , Liw Pei-Xuan , Yu Ya-Lun , Kao Chia-Hung 

TITLE=Colchicine Is a Weapon for Managing the Heart Disease Among Interstitial Lung Disease With Viral Infection: Have We Found the Holy Grail?

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2022.925211

DOI=10.3389/fcvm.2022.925211

ISSN=2297-055X

ABSTRACT=Background: This study investigated the effect of colchicine use on the risks of heart disease (HD), pericarditis, endocarditis, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiac failure in patients having interstitial lung disease (ILD) with virus infection (ILD cohort).
Methods: We retrospectively enrolled ILD cohort between 2000 and 2013 from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database and divided them into colchicine users (n = 12,253) and colchicine nonusers (n = 12,253) through propensity score matching. The event of interest was the diagnosis of HD. The incidence of HD was analyzed using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models between colchicine users and the comparison cohort after adjustment for age, sex, medication, comorbidities and index date based on the time-dependent analysis.
Results: Colchicine users had a significantly lower risk of HD (aHR = 0.87, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.82–0.92) than did the colchicine nonuser. For colchicine nonusers as the reference, the aHR (95% CI) of the patients who received colchicine fo 2-7, 8–30, 31–150, and >150 days were 0.89 (0.81–0.98), 0.84 (0.76–0.94), 090 (0.80–0.99), and 0.83 (0.74–0.93), respectively; regardless of duration use, the lower risk of HD persisted in colchicine users. The cumulative incidence of HD in colchicine users was significantly lower than that in the colchicine nonusers (log-rank P<.001).
Conclusion: The addition of short-term or long-term colchicine to standard medical therapy may have benefit to prevent the HD among the ILD patients concurrent with virus infection or comorbidities even in elderly patients.