Smoking worsens pulmonary fibrosis outcome

LONDON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Smokers and ex-smokers with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an untreatable lung disease, have a worse prognosis than non-smokers, a British study says.

Study leader Dr. Athol U. Wells of the Royal Brompton Hospital in London studied the medical records of 249 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and analyzed the extent and severity of their disease, smoking history and survival. Previous research had counter-intuitively suggested that current smokers with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis might live longer than ex-smokers

The initial findings -- unadjusted for disease severity -- found smokers had longer survival times than ex-smokers, but when the researchers adjusted their data to reflect the extent and severity of the disease at presentation, their findings shed a new light.

Symptomatic patients with more severe disease may be more likely to stop smoking for perceived health reasons; it can therefore be argued that current smoking might be a marker of less severe disease, associated with better survival.

The study appears in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.