Kärkkäinen M, et al. – This study determined the impact of smoking and comorbidities on survival in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Researchers reported that smoking seems to influence the course of disease in IPF since current smokers developed the disease at a younger age in comparison to non–smokers and ex–smokers. They did not find significant differences in the major comorbidities between IPF patients with different smoking histories. The mechanism through which smoking influences IPF progression needs further investigation

Methods

• For this purpose, retrospective data was gathered and patients were categorized according to gender and smoking habits.
• After that, comorbidities and medications were gathered.
• Finally, predictive values for mortality were identified by COX proportional hazard analyses.

Results

• According to the findings obtained, 45 non-smokers (53.3% female), 66 ex-smokers (9.1% female) and 17 current smokers (17.6% female) were examined with IPF.
• It was observed in the findings that current smokers were younger at baseline (58.1 ± 8.74 years) compared to non-smokers (71.4 ± 8.74, p < 0.001) and ex-smokers (72.5 ±7.95, p <0.001).
• It was noted that median survival of non-smokers and current smokers was longer (55.0 and 52.0 months, respectively) than that of ex-smokers (36.0 months) (p=0.028 and 0.034, respectively).
• In age and severity adjusted analyses, smoking was not associated with survival.
• Findings revealed that cardiovascular diseases (CVD) (72.7 %) were the most common comorbidities, current smokers had more chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer compared to ex-smokers (p<0.001).
• The present data indicated that CVD, COPD and use of insulin were associated with poorer survival in adjusted analyses.