%0 Journal Article
%T Clinical and economic burden of acute exacerbations of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: a prospective observational study in Spain (OASIS study).
%A Gómez AV
%A Rodríguez-Nieto MJ
%A Cano-Jiménez E
%A Ortiz AR
%A Morros M
%A Ramon A
%A Armengol S
%J BMC Pulm Med
%V 24
%N 1
%D 2024 Jul 31
%M 39080648
%F 3.32
%R 10.1186/s12890-024-03186-4
%X <B>BACKGROUND: </B>Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a fatal progressive lung disease entailing significant impairment in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and high socioeconomic burden. The course of IPF includes episodes of acute exacerbations (AE-IPF) leading to poor outcomes. This study aimed to compare management, costs and HRQoL of patients with AE-IPF to patients without AE-IPF during one year in Spain.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>In a 12-month, prospective, observational, multicenter study of IPF patients, healthcare resource use was recorded and costs related to AE-IPF were estimated and compared between patients with and without AE-IPF. HRQoL was measured with the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), EuroQoL 5 dimensions 5 levels questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L), EQ-5D visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS) and the Barthel Index.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>204 IPF patients were included: 22 (10.8%) experienced ≥ 1 acute exacerbation, and 182 (89.2%) did not. Patients with exacerbations required more primary care visits, nursing home visits, emergency visits, hospital admissions, pharmacological treatments and transport use (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). Likewise, patients with exacerbations showed higher annual direct health AE-IPF-related costs. In particular, specialized visits, emergency visits, days of hospitalization, tests, palliative care, transport in ambulance and economic aid (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). Exploratory results showed that patients with AE-IPF reported a non-significant but substantial decline of HRQoL compared with patients without AE-IPF, although causality can be inferred.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>We observed significantly higher resource use and cost consumption and lower HRQoL among patients suffering exacerbations during the study. Thus, preventing or avoiding AE-IPF is key in IPF management.