Timothy M. Dempsey, Viengneesee Thao, David A. Helfinstine Jr, Yu-Hui H. Chang, Lindsey Sangaralingham, Andrew H. Limper
European Respiratory Journal 2023 62: 2301299; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.01299-2023
Extract
The antifibrotic medications pirfenidone and nintedanib became the first US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medical therapy for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2014. This occurred after a pair of randomised controlled trials showed that the drugs slowed the decline in forced vital capacity compared to placebo [1, 2]. Since the medications’ approval, there has been a growing body of literature from pooled meta-analyses and observational studies that suggest the medications may also reduce mortality and all-cause hospitalisations in patients with IPF, outcomes that are difficult to study via clinical trials in a rare, deadly disease such as IPF [3–6].
Consistent with prior observational studies, pirfenidone and nintedanib were observed to have reduced risk of mortality and hospitalisations in patients with IPF in this large US Medicare dataset. The result holds after accounting for “immortal time bias”. https://bit.ly/3YWFyTK
Footnotes
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Conflict of interest: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
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Support statement: This study was funded by the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. Support was also received from the Three Lakes Partners Foundation to the Mayo Clinic. There was no industry funding for this study. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received February 27, 2023.
- Accepted August 25, 2023.
- Copyright ©The authors 2023. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions@ersnet.org
