Epidemiology, survival, incidence and prevalence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in the USA and Canada

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a very complex disease and despite the diagnostic criteria published in evidence-based guidelines in 2011, there are significant pitfalls in making an accurate diagnosis of IPF [1]. This has surfaced as a reason for the high rate of screen failures in recent prospective clinical trials for IPF [2–5]. Since epidemiological studies are simply based on data entered in medical records and health claim databases, and are not subject to validation by review of actual raw data by experienced experts and multidisciplinary discussions among experts in the field of interstitial lung disease, the reports of the incidence and prevalence of IPF can only be estimates of diagnosis made on assumptions and, thus, must be interpreted with caution. Indeed, tracking the true occurrence of IPF is challenging [6]. We must be mindful of the caveats of the methods used to estimate the incidence and prevalence of IPF <http://ow.ly/MAa0306XRLp>