Tobacco smoking tied to risk of pulmonary fibrosis: Study

Greece: Active and maternal smoking are independently related to the risk of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and work synergistically, a recent study has found. The study findings are published in the Chest journal. 

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is an interstitial lung disease whose origin is not known. A limited number of small studies have shown the effect of tobacco smoking on IPF risk, but the effect of second-hand smoking is not examined. To fill this knowledge gap, Evangelos Evangelou, Institute of Biosciences, University Research Center of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece, and colleagues addressed the question of whether smoking-related exposures are associated with the risk of IPF and do an interaction between them exist. 

To work towards their objective Evangelou and the team designed a prospective cohort study using UK Biobank data. It included 437,453 nonrelated men and women of White ethnic background (40-69 years of age at baseline). The effect of tobacco smoking-related exposures on IPF risk was assessed. Potential additive and multiplicative interactions between these exposures were also examined. Multiple imputations with chained equations were used to address missing data. 802 incident IPF cases were identified. 

The research yielded the following findings: 

The researchers concluded, "active and maternal tobacco smoking have an independent detrimental effect on risk of IPF and work synergistically. Also, the intensity of smoking presents a dose-response association with IPF, strengthening the hypothesis for a potentially causal association."

Reference:

The study titled, "Tobacco Smoking and Risk for Pulmonary Fibrosis: A Prospective Cohort Study From the UK Biobank," is published in the Chest journal.

DOI: https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(21)00760-1/fulltext