Table 3.

Multivariate analysis of predictive items for improvement or deterioration of lung function

Group	Variable	Factor	Multivariate analysis
			P value	HR	95% CI
No pulmonary involvement	FVC increase > 10%	CCL2 (MCP-1)	0.028	0.972	0.947-0.997
		Age at inclusion	0.038	0.903	0.820-0.994
	FVC decline > 10%	Age at inclusion	0.044	1.107	1.003-1.222
DLCO decline > 20%	Female sex	0.031	13.364	1.267-140.934
	IL-10	0.028	0.064	0.006-0.744
All patients with pulmonary involvement	DLCO decline > 20%	TGF-b	0.041	0.997	0.995-1.000
ILD	DLCO decline > 20%	IL-7	0.019	1.591	1.078-2.349
	DLCO decline > 30%	IL-7*	0.028	1.996	1.078-3.695

Clinical items (gender, age, SSc form, anti-Scl-70 and anti-centromere positivity, mRSS, DLCO, FVC, lung fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension at inclusion) and serum cytokines were included in a multivariate analysis in order to calculate independently predictive factors for improvement or deterioration of lung function (e.g. decline of FVC or DLCO by 10, 20 or 30%). Only significant items are given with the hazard ratio (HR) and the 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Items were calculated with two methods (forward and backward inclusion), items marked with an asterisk (*) were calculated by both models.