The association of lung cancer with pulmonary fibrosis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) shares several pathogenetic similarities with other fibrotic lung diseases. Patients with IPF are considered to have a higher risk of concomitant lung cancer (LC) as a result of similar risk factors which include older age, smoking and male sex. Patients with IPF have a poor prognosis with a median survival time ranging from 2 to 5 years [1]. It is not yet known if LC is a significant contributor to deaths in those with IPF. To address this question, we evaluated the association between LC and IPF compared to all non-IPF decedents in the USA from 2004 to 2018. In this study using a large database of US decedents, the overall presence of lung cancer was lower in those with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis compared to those without idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis https://bit.ly/30d6dC4