Acute Exacerbation of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

©Copyright 2017 by the Atatürk University School of Medicine Available online at www.eurasianjmed.com ABSTRACT Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common cause of chronic diffuse parenchymal disease of unknown cause. However, IPF patients sometimes develop acute exacerbation (AE), which is a life-threatening condition. The cause of AE of IPF remains unknown. The new criteria for AE of IPF have been proposed last year, wherein both idiopathic and triggered AE were proposed. Triggered AE includes infection, post-procedure and post-operation, drug toxicity, and aspiration. Therefore, detailed history taking is crucial. In this review, the definition, clinical symptoms, chest imaging, management, and prognosis for AE of IPF are described.


Introduction Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is chronic parenchymal lung disease of unknown etiology and most common fibrotic lung disease of Idiopathic Interstitial
Pneumonias [1].Majority of IPF patients are over 60's men and smokers [1,2].
Familial cluster is sometimes identified around 3% [3].Genetic background such as MUC5B is associated with development of IPF [4,5].Natural history of IPF is quite heterogeneous from chronic stable to progressive respiratory failure or acute exacerbation (AE) [6].Incidence of AE of IPF is 5-10% per year [7].However, there is variable incidence depend on ethnicity.Japanese is more susceptible to AE of IPF [8].Therefore, some genetic regulatory factor may be related with AE [9].In this review, I describe clinical pictures, laboratory findings, chest imaging especially high resolution computed tomography( HRCT) findings, management and prognosis in AE of IPF.

Diagnosis process
There have been reported that reduced pulmonary function especially forced vital capacity (FVC) ,never smoker and baseline serum Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) are crucial risk factors of AE of IPF [10][11][12][13].Reduced FVC patients often have decreased normal area due to extensive fibrosis.Therefore, these patients is easy to develop severe lung injury consistent with gefitinib-associated interstitial lung disease(ILD) [14].In never smoker IPF patients, baseline dyspnea grade and serial progression of dyspnea can predict near-future development of AE [15].So, once we diagnose IPF, physiological evaluation and impairment of activity if daily living due to exertional dyspnea are main task for physician.
International working group report proposed revised criteria of AE of IPF in 2016 [16].Important situation is previous diagnosis of IPF and acute worsening or development of progressive dyspnea less than 1 month duration.And important change is bronchoalveolar lavage does not necessarily require for diagnosis of AE compared with 2007 criteria [17](Table 1).Therefore, AE of IPF can be diagnosed in general hospital.This criteria is rather broad coverage compared to original criteria in 2007 [7,16].
New criteria divided into two groups comprising of triggered and idiopathic.
Triggered consists of infection, post-procedural, post-operative, drug toxicity and aspiration.(Figure 1) In medical interview, disease duration is less than 1 month, next we should exclude pneumothorax, pleural effusion by chest radiography and pulmonary embolism is excluded by combination of clinical history and contrast enhanced chest CT.Furthermore, if we see bilateral shadow by chest radiograph, chest CT will be required for evaluation of bilateral ground glass opacity (GGO) and consolidation with chronic fibrotic findings such as honeycombing, traction bronchiectasis/bronchioloectasis or reticular opacity.LDH is associated with 90-day mortality of AE [18].In addition, Enomoto,et al showed that serum Ferritin over 500 ng/ml will predict poor prognosis of AE of IPF [19].Recently, serum periostin have been pay attention to attractive biomarker of IPF.Serum periostin is elevated both acute phase and chronic stable phase in IPF patients [20,21].Further multi-center study will be required for further validation.
Both serum KL-6 and surfactant protein-D (SP-D) are useful marker of IPF [22,23].However, KL-6 is high-molecular weight protein.Therefore, response of KL-6 is rather slow than LDH and elevation of serum KL-6 is seen after acute phase of AE.Regarding serum SP-D, which reflects inflammation process [24].
So, severe pneumonia patients often show elevation of SP-D.On the basis of these findings, distinction AE of IPF from severe pneumonia is quite difficult by serum SP-D alone.On the basis of 2016 new criteria proposal, we reported that triggered group showed more extensive new shadow than idiopathic group [18](Table 2).Multivariate analysis showed that serum LDH and serial trend of LDH predict 90-day mortality [18](Table 3).Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that over 80 IU/L of serum LDH within 2 weeks was associated with poor survival (p=0.046)[18](Figure 2).

Imaging
In chest radiogragh, new bilateral diffuse shadow superimposed lower lobe reticular shadow is typical findings of AE of IPF patients.Comparison with previous film is a first step of diagnosis.
2018 latest international IPF guideline strongly insists on the importance of chest HRCT for AE of IPF [1].We should look for existence of usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) pattern such as subpleural and basal predominant opacity, peripheral dominant and heterogeneous distribution, architectural distortion consist of traction bronchiectasis and honeycombing [25].Regarding CT findings of AE of IPF, Akira,et al proposed that they divided into three patterns consist of peripheral, multifocal and diffuse [26](Figure 3).New parenchyma shadow extent was significantly higher than other two patterns.They evaluated several follow-up CT scans.In peripheral type survivors, majority of GGO and consolidation regressed to baseline abnormalities.In multifocal survivors, GGO and consolidation disappeared with corticosteroid therapy.On the contrary, diffuse pattern demonstrated significant extension of GGO and consolidation.
Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed significant difference based on CT pattern [26](Figure 3).In multivariate analysis, CT patterns such as diffuse was the strongest predictor of mortality (Table 4).Another study, Kishaba,et al showed that staging of AE of IPF is useful for prediction of prognosis.They identified four important parameters such as serum LDH, KL-6, ratio of partial pressure of oxygen and fraction of inspiratory oxygen concentration and GGO score plus consolidation score.They assigned point for each parameter [27] (Table 5) and divided into two stage groups comprising of limited and extensive [27](Table 6).
In addition, extensive group showed poor prognosis compared to limited group [27](Figure 4).According to these studies, detail assessment of chest HRCT findings for AE of IPF will provide quite informative information for physician.

Management
In AE of IPF patients, 2018 Japanese IPF treatment guideline suggested corticosteroid including pulse therapy [28].Steroid pulse therapy have usually been done for consecutive three days and sometimes weekly pulse therapy be repeated two times and multiple pulse therapy often have association with opportunistic infection such as pneumocystis pneumonia and viral infection.
Therefore, meticulous titration of prednisolone dosage will be needed during maintenance phase.IPF itself is fibrotic lung disease.However, there are component of inflammation in AE of IPF [2].Therefore, some patients show response to corticosteroid.In addition, when we see partial response with prednisolone, we commence immunosuppressants such as intravenous cyclophosphamide [29].But these treatment strategy is not supported by robust evidence.Recently, two novel therapy have been reported to be possible effect for AE of IPF.First, some report showed that direct hemoperfusion with polymyxin B-immobilized fiber column (PMX-DHP) is effective for AE and prolongs survival of AE of IPF patients [30][31][32].PMX-DHP is originally introduced to manage for sepsis or septic shock because of neutrophil removal by column.
In addition, early introduction of PMX-DHP within 3 days after disease on set is effective especially for dermatomyositis [33].Based on these reports, we see severe inflammation with AE of IPF patients, we may consider PMX-DHP as possible choice.Second is recombinant human soluble thrombomodulin (rhTM) which is anti-inflammatory effect and mitigate coagulation cascade.rhTM is also developed as anti-sepsis agent.In acute lung injury,there is intensive procoagulant activity in lung parenchyma [34].Therefore, rhTM is a promising agent with mechanism of action for AE of IPF.Several reports showed intravenous rhTM for consecutive six days improved survival of AE of IPF patients [35][36][37][38][39]. Medical insurance does not cover these two therapy for AE of IPF.Therefore, we should discuss about use of such novel therapy with patient and their family thoroughly.And Tomioka,et al. reported that a case of AE of IPF improved by nintedanib alone [40].When we see mild AE of IPF patients, anti-fibrotic agent may play a role during acute and chronic phase.In addition, high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is sometimes introduced for IPF recently.
Breathing rate and minute ventilation are decreased with HFNC [41].In AE of IPF patients, pharrmacological treatment with HFNC can provide relief of dyspnea [42].HFNC Future multi-center study will be anticipated.[43](Figure 5).Mean survival of AE of IPF is less than 1-year and 90-day mortality is around 50%.Therefore, prevention of AE is crucial issue.Recent anti0fibrotic agent especially nintedanib showed to prevent AE of IPF in international clinical trial about half.And pirfenidone showed long-term tolerance and preservation of FVC.Therefore, sensible use of these anti-fibrotic agents will provide good prognosis and prevention of AE of IPF patients [44](Table 7).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Proposed algorithm for AE of IPF

Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 1 .Figure 3
Figure 2 Survival curve based on serial trend of LDH

T able 6 Figure 4 Figure 5
Figure 4 Survival curve based on staging of AE of IPF

Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 16 November 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201811.0377.v1
[1]markerIn laboratory findings, classic inflammation marker such as white blood cell and C-reactive protein are usually elevated[1].In chemistry panel, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is simple and sensitive marker of prediction of short-term prognosis of AE of IPF patients.Kishaba,et al. reported that serial trend of serum

Table 1
Comparison of 2007 and 2016 criteria for AE of IPF Preprints (www.

Table 2
Clinical characteristics of triggered and idiopathic AE of IPF patients

Table 3
Univariate and multivariable analysis of predictors with 90-day mortality Preprints (www.

Table 4
Multivariate analysis of AE of IPF Preprints (www.

Table 5
Point assignment of staging of AE of IPF

Table 7
Characteristics of Anti-fibrotic agent Preprints (www.