Objective To investigate the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome ( OSAHS) in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ( IPF) and its clinical significance. Methods Sleep quality and breathing disorders were measured by polysomnography and the relationship with lung function was analyzed in 20 IPF patients. Results Thirteen of 20 subjects ( 65% ) had OSAHS as defined by an AHI ≥5 events per hour. Three subjects ( 15% ) had mild OSAHS ( AHI,5 to 20 events per hour) , and 10 subjects ( 50% ) had moderate-to-severe OSAHS ( AHI≥20 events per hour) . The sleep architecture in these patients showed a reduction in sleep efficiency, rapid eye movement ( REM) sleep and slow wave sleep, and a marked sleep fragmentation due to an increased arousal index. The AHI was negatively correlated with FVC% pred ( r =-0.672, P=0.001) and FEV1% pred ( r =-0.659, P=0.002) , and positively correlated with body mass index ( BMI) ( r=0.791, Plt;0.0001) . Conclusions OSAHS is a common comorbidity in IPF. Early treatment of OSAHS may improve quality of life and the prognosis of patients with IPF.
After pirfenidone and nintedanib showed efficacy, drug treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis began to focused on anti-fibrosis. Current research on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis mainly focus on the pathogenesis and therapeutic targets, and more targeted drugs are gradually entering clinical trials. This article summarizes the results of recent studies on the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with pirfenidone and nintedanib alone or in combination by searching the literature, and reviews the mechanism and test results of the new target anti-fibrosis drugs based on molecular biology that are currently undergoing clinical research in various phases, and aims to provide a basis for how to choose drugs to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Objective To investigate the impact and mechanisms of periostin (POSTN), Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6), pulmonary surfactant protein A (SP-A), and pulmonary surfactant protein D (SP-D) on the diagnosis and disease assessment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and conduct a comparative analysis. Methods From October 2022 to October 2023, a total of 55 patients diagnosed with IPF and treated at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University were enrolled as an IPF group. Additionally, 30 patients with bacterial pneumonia and 30 healthy individuals undergoing concurrent health examinations during the same period were selected as a pneumonia control group and a healthy control group, respectively. All participants underwent enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to measure serum levels of POSTN, KL-6, SP-A, and SP-D, along with pulmonary function tests. The IPF patients also underwent high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and echocardiography to quantify HRCT scores and pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to analyze the significance of serum POSTN, KL-6, SP-A, and SP-D levels in IPF diagnosis. Pearson and Spearman correlation tests were used to analyze the relationships between these biomarkers and pulmonary function, PASP, and HRCT scores. Results Serum concentrations of POSTN, KL-6, SP-A, and SP-D were significantly elevated in the IPF group compared with the pneumonia group and the healthy controls (P<0.05), while serum levels of SP-A and SP-D were notably higher in the pneumonia group compared with the healthy control group (P<0.05). Within the IPF group, serum POSTN levels were negatively correlated with forced expiratory volume in the first second as a percentage of predicted value (FEV1%pred) and diffusion capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide as a percentage of predicted value (DLCO%pred) (P<0.05); KL-6 and SP-D levels were also negatively correlated with FEV1%pred, forced vital capacity as a percentage of predicted value (FVC%pred), and DLCO%pred (P<0.05); and the concentration of SP-A was negatively correlated with DLCO%pred and positively correlated with PASP (P<0.05). Additionally, serum levels of POSTN, KL-6, and SP-A in the IPF group showed significant positive associations with HRCT scores (P<0.01). Conclusions POSTN is a valuable serum biomarker for IPF, exhibiting the highest sensitivity and specificity among the four serum markers, with diagnostic performance superior to KL-6, SP-A, and SP-D. POSTN, KL-6, SP-A, and SP-D can all be used for the diagnosis and assessment of IPF.
ObjectiveTo investigate the key long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and transcription factors (TFs) in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) by Bioinformatics analysis.MethodsBioinformatics analysis of three gene expression profiles from the Gene Expression Omnibus dataset (GSE2052, GSE44723, and GSE24206), including 42 IPF and 21 normal lung tissues, was performed in this study. Subsequently, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were filtered, and key genes involved in signaling pathways and the DEG-associated protein-protein interaction network (PPI) were further analyzed. The filtered genes expression was determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis.ResultsA total of 8483 aberrantly expressed genes were screened, and 29 overlapping genes were identified among these three datasets. A significant enrichment analysis of DEG-associated functions and pathways was further performed. A total of 18 modules were obtained from the DEG PPI network, and most of the modules were involved in polyubiquitination, Golgi vesicle transport, endocytosis and so on. The key genes were obtained through hypergeometric testing, and most of the corresponding genes were closely associated with ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis, the spliceosome, and the cell cycle. These differential expressed genes, such as lncMALAT1, E2F1 and YBX1, were detected in the peripheral blood of IPF patients when compared with those normal control subjects.ConclusionlncMALAT1, E2F1 and YBX1 might be possible regulators for the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
【Abstract】 Objective To evaluate the relationship between multiple tumor biomarkers and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ( IPF) , and analyze the prognostic value of these biomarkers in IPF. Methods Clinical data of 43 confirmed IPF patients with no evidence of malignant disaeses, admitted in Peking Union Medical College Hospital between January 2000 and June 2010, were retrospectively analyzed. All IPF patients had detected serum alpha fetoprotein ( AFP) , cancer antigen 50 ( CA50) , cancer antigen 24-2( CA24-2) , carcinoembryonic antigen ( CEA) , carbohydrate antigen 19-9 ( CA19-9) , cancer antigen 125( CA125) , cancer antigen 15-3 ( CA15-3) , tissue polypeptide antigen ( TPA) , neuron specific enolase( NSE) , and cytokeratin-19-fragment ( Cyfra211) . Results The serum levels of CEA, CA19-9, CA125,CA15-3, and TPA were obviously higher than normal range, while the serum levels of AFP, CA50, CA24-2,NSE, and Cyfra211 were within normal range. Neither tumor biomarkers had correlation with 6-minute walk distance, FVC% pred, TLC% pred, DLCO/VA, PaO2 , PaO2 /FiO2 , P( A-a) O2 , BALF cell differentiation counting,or CD4 /CD8. The patients with increased CA19-9 level had shorter survival time than those with normal CA19-9 level ( P lt; 0. 05) . There was no significant difference in survival time between the patients with increased CEA/TPA levels and those with normal CEA/TPA levels( P gt;0. 05) , neither between the patients with glucocorticoid treatment and those with non-glucocorticoid treatment ( P gt; 0. 05) . Conclusions Multiple tumor biomarkers, especially CA19-9, increase in IPF patients. The degrees of those increases arenot associated with the severity of disease, but closely relate to prognosis, and may also indicate the progression. The increases of multiple tumor biomarkers may be a sign of poor prognosis of IPF with no evidence of malignant disaeses.
Objective To improve the awareness of acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ( AEIPF) and discuss its clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and outcome. Methods The clinical data of patients with AEIPF from June 2006 to June 2011 in 11 hospitals in Jiangsu were collected and analyzed. Resluts There were 18 males and 3 females in the AEIPF patients with mean age of ( 67.4 ± 8.1) years. The duration from IPF diagnosis was ( 7.4 ±8.2) months. The duration of acute symptom before admission was ( 7.0 ±5.3) days. The distribution pattern of new groud-glass opacity was peripheral in 3 patients,multifocal in 5 patients, and diffuse in13 patients. All patients were treated with corticosteroid pulse therapy. Nine patients survived and 12 patients died. The mortality rate was 57.1% . Conclusions AEIPF progresses quickly and the mortality rate is very high. Corticosteroid pulse therapy is the mainstay of therapy in AEIPF patients.
美国胸科协会(ATS)和欧洲呼吸学会(ERS)联合发表的共识中，将特发性肺纤维化(IPF)定义为原因不明并以普通型间质性肺炎(UIP)为特征性病理改变的一种慢性纤维化性间质性肺疾病。在2000年ATS／ERS的IPF共识意见 及2003年中华医学会呼吸病学分会IPF的诊断和治疗指南(草案) 中均推荐的治疗方案为糖皮质激素，或与细胞毒制剂(环磷酰胺及硫唑嘌呤)联合使用。但目前尚缺乏循证医学证据支持该治疗方案能够提高IPF患者生活质量或生存率 。近年来随着对IPF的发病机制认识的深入，越来越多的临床医师和研究者对IPF患者是否需要用糖皮质激素等药物的治疗提出了质疑。
Objective To systematically evaluate the effectiveness of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) combined with low-dose glucocorticoid for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Methods Such databases as The Cochrane Library (Issue 12, 2012), EMbase (January 1974 to July 2012), PubMed (January 1966 to July 2012), CHEST (January 1995 to July 2012), CNKI (January 1994 to July 2012), CBM (January 1978 to July 2012), VIP (January 1989 to July 2012) and WanFang Data (January 1995 to July 2012) were searched to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about NAC combined with low-dose glucocorticoid versus glucocorticoid alone for IPF patients. Two reviewers independently screened the literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the quality, and then the meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.1 software. Results A total of seven RCTs including 264 IPF patients were included. The results of meta-analysis demonstrated that, compared with the glucocorticoid used alone, a) NAC combined with low-dose glucocorticoid could significantly improve PaO2 (SMD=0.82 mmHg, 95%CI 0.30 to 1.35, P=0.002) and DLco (SMD=0.59 mmHg, 95%CI 0.16 to 1.03, P=0.008) with a significant difference. b) NAC combined with low-dose glucocorticoid could significantly improve all clinical symptoms (RR=1.56, 95%CI 1.26 to 1.92, Plt;0.000 1). Conclusion NAC combined with low-dose glucocorticoid for IPF patients can significantly improve PaO2, DLco, and the clinical symptoms such as cough, difficulty breathing after activities, cyanosis, and Velcro rales. Due to the quantity and quality limitation of included studies, this conclusion still needs to be further proved by more high quality and double blind RCTs.
Objective To investigate the characteristics on chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of patients with interstitial pneumonia with positive myeloperoxidase antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (MPO-IP). Methods The extent of fibrosis and subtypes of emphysema on HRCT of MPO-IP patients were retrospectively analyzed and compared with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) cases admitted in the same period. Results From July 2014 to March 2016, 10 patients was diagnosed with IPF and 10 patients was diagnosed with MPO-IP. Emphysema was not different between two groups. Among the MPO-IP patients, 8 patients presented with a usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) pattern. There existed statistical difference in the bronchial bifurcation level, the fibrosis score of lungs in the MPO-IP patients presented with UIP was lower than that in the IPF patients. Conclusions UIP is the predominant radiologic type of MPO-IP patients. Fibrosis in IPF is more serious than that in MPO-IP with UIP. Paraseptal and centrilobular emphysema are main forms in MPO-IP patients.
2000 年美国胸科学会/ 欧洲呼吸学会( ATS/ERS) 发表了特发性肺纤维化( idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, IPF) 诊断和治疗的共识。历经11 年, IPF 的临床和基础研究均取得了许多重要进展。2011 年来自美国胸科学会( American Thoracic Society,ATS) 、欧洲呼吸学会( European Respiratory Society, ERS) 、日本呼吸学会( Japanese Respiratory Society,JRS) 和拉丁美洲胸科学会( Latin American Thoracic Association, ALAT) 的间质性肺疾病( ILD) 、特发性间质性肺炎( IIP) 和IPF领域的著名专家, 系统回顾了2010 年5 月前有关IPF的文献, 共同制定了第一部以循证为基础的IPF诊断和治疗指南( 简称2011 指南) , 于2011 年3 月正式颁布 。2011 指南涵盖当今对IPF 的最新知识, 囊括IPF 定义、流行病学、危险因素、诊断、自然病史、分期与预后、治疗和疾病过程监控、将来的研究方向等多方面的内容。限于篇幅, 本文对2011 指南中的主要内容作一简介, 以飨国内同道。