#ILDMastodon #ILD Community,
Personal reflection on important considerations in #IPF patients:
When a patient is diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the risk assessment, disease stage/severity, and initiation of antifibrotic treatment should not only be based on the percent predicted FVC. There are other important functional parameters (such as DLCO) or factors to be taken into account.
It is also important to assess the patient's symptoms (eg, dyspnea on exertion and cough), the radiological pattern on HRCT (especially if the pattern is usual interstitial pneumonia #UIP), and the extent of fibrosis.
In addition, it is important to have information about personal and family history that could be associated with familial pulmonary fibrosis and / or #telomere shortening syndrome. #IPF #TRG #TelomereDysfunction
Obviously a detailed medical history is essential that includes risk factors or environmental exposures that the patient may have had, either due to their occupational history, place where they live, hobbies, etc.
We should also take into account the patient's comorbidities to assess their risk of disease progression. Only when we have evaluated all the aforementioned characteristics, we could be in a position to say the stage of #IPF and its need for antifibrotic treatment.
Therefore my recommendation is not to look only at the FVC, because we could have an incomplete and not adequate view of the stage and prognosis of #IPF. Holistic and multidisciplinary approach above all, patients are our priority.
The predicted FVC percentage is important (whether you're calculating the absolute or relative difference in the short or long term), but it's not the only factor to consider. More #research is needed
For more information: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33895005/
Many thanks