Antacid therapies may not improve outcomes in patients with IPF

By Dr Deepu


proton pump inhibitors or other antacid therapies” may not “improve outcomes in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and the treatment may increase infection risk in patients with advanced disease, according to findings from a post-hoc analysis of three large, randomized trials. Patients with IPF from the placebo groups of three trials of pirfenidone (CAPACITY 004, CAPACITY 006, and ASCEND) were included in the analysis. They analysed effects of antacid therapy use from baseline for pulmonary function, exercise tolerance, survival, hospital admission, and adverse events for 52 weeks.
Of 624 patients, 291 (47%) received antacid therapy and 333 (53%) did not. At 52 weeks, there was no significant difference between groups for disease progression. Rates also did not differ for all-cause mortality, IPF-related mortality, absolute FVC decrease, or mean observed change in FVC. The rate of hospital admission was non-significantly higher in the antacid therapy group . When stratified by baseline FVC (<70% or ≥70%), disease progression, mortality, FVC, 6MWD, and hospital admission did not differ between groups. Adverse events were similar between treatment and no treatment groups;