Abstract
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and fibrosing lung disease with a poor prognosis. Between 60% and 70% of IPF patients die of IPF; the remaining causes of death may be due to comorbidities occurring in this ageing population. Interest in the role played by comorbidities in IPF has increased in the past few years. The optimal clinical management of IPF is multifaceted and not only involves antifibrotic treatment, but also vaccinations, oxygen supplementation, evaluation of nutritional status as well as psychological support and patient education. Symptom management, pulmonary rehabilitation, palliative care and treatment of comorbidities represent further areas of clinical intervention. This review analyses the major comorbidities observed in IPF, focusing on those that have the greatest impact on mortality and quality of life (QoL). The identification and treatment of comorbidities may help to improve patients' health-related QoL (i.e. sleep apnoea and depression), while some comorbidities (i.e. lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases and pulmonary hypertension) influence survival. It has been outlined that gathering comorbidities data improves the prediction of survival beyond the clinical and physiological parameters of IPF.
Abstract
The optimal clinical management of IPF is multifaceted and not only involves antifibrotic treatment. Treatment of comorbidities may help to improve quality of life and survival in IPF. The numbers of comorbidities can also affect survival. http://bit.ly/31We41O
Footnotes
Provenance: Publication of this peer-reviewed article was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany (principal sponsor European Respiratory Review issue 153).
Conflict of interest: A. Caminati reports personal fees from Roche and Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: C. Lonati has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: R. Cassandro has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: D. Elia has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: G. Pelosi has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: O. Torre has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: M. Zompatori has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: E. Uslenghi has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: S. Harari reports grants and personal fees from Roche, Actelion and Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work.
- Received April 30, 2019.
- Accepted August 16, 2019.
- Copyright ©ERS 2019.
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.