Low dosage of corticosteroid may improve prognosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: BMC

A new study conducted by Keisuke Anan and team showed that in individuals with acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (AE-IPF), early corticosteroid dosage lowering was linked to a good prognosis. The findings of this study were published in BMC Respiratory Research.

The most prevalent form of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IP), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), is characterized by persistent, progressive lung fibrosis. There is little agreement on the tapering protocol, despite  the fact that corticosteroid therapy with dosage reduction is the most often used treatment for acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The purpose of this study was to determine if early corticosteroid dosage tapering and in-hospital mortality in patients with AE-IPF are related.

In this retrospective cohort study, researchers examined administrative data from a cohort of 185 Japanese hospitals and a cohort of eight Japanese tertiary care institutions. Depending on whether the maintenance dose of corticosteroids was lowered within two weeks of admission, patients with AE-IPF were divided into early and non-early tapering groups. To calculate the impact of early corticosteroid dosage tapering, Propensity Score Analysis with Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) was used.