The association of pulmonary fibrosis with diabetes mellitus

• Published in: ERJ open research 2020-10, Vol.6 (4), p.237
• Main Authors: Jeganathan, Niranjan, Miot, Christelle, Sathananthan, Airani, Sathananthan, Matheni
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original Research Letters
• ISSN: 2312-0541; 2312-0541
• DOI: 10.1183/23120541.00237-2020

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most studied fibrotic lung disease and has overlapping pathogenesis with other fibrotic lung diseases. It is associated with a high prevalence of other comorbidities, such as COPD, lung cancer and coronary artery disease, due to common risk factors such as smoking and older age [1]. Several case–control studies have also suggested a link between IPF and diabetes mellitus. These studies have reported a higher prevalence of diabetes in IPF patients compared to matched controls [2–5]. In a small study, the presence of diabetes was also shown to increase the risk of mortality in IPF patients [6]. Given the limited data due to the small sizes of the prior studies, we sought to explore the prevalence of pulmonary fibrosis (PF) in diabetics compared to nondiabetics in a larger cohort stratified by sex, race and age. In addition, we evaluated differences in the underlying cause of death (UCD) in PF patients with and without diabetes. The association between diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis is not well understood. This large study demonstrates that the prevalence of pulmonary fibrosis is lower in diabetic decedents compared to nondiabetic decedents. https://bit.ly/3gNgjeU