AUTHOR=Liang Peihong , Wu Jun 

TITLE=Association between nutritional risk and CRP levels in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2025.1611981

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2025.1611981

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=BackgroundPatients with acute exacerbation of COPD frequently experience malnutrition, while the quantitative relationship between CRP and nutritional risk remains undefined. This study is the first to investigate this association.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study analyzed 313 hospitalized patients diagnosed with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD). Participants were stratified into a nutritional risk group (n = 55) and a non-risk group (n = 258) using the NRS-2002 screening tool. Clinical data were analyzed via Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, binary logistic regression, and restricted cubic splines (RCS) to model the nonlinear CRP-nutritional risk relationship. Feature importance was further validated through SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) machine learning interpretability frameworks.ResultsThe nutritional risk was significantly increased in high CRP group; RCS curve showed that CRP was positively correlated with risk; SHAP model showed that high CRP eigenvalue may be associated with increased nutritional risk.ConclusionThis study highlights the significant correlation between CRP levels and nutritional risk in patients with AECOPD, providing evidence for nutritional risk assessment and early intervention in patients with AECOPD.