Quantitative analysis of lung sounds for monitoring idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: a prospective pilot study

Accurate monitoring of disease progression in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is crucial for predicting prognosis and optimising management, including the initiation of therapies, the appropriate timing of supportive care and the prompt referral for lung transplantation. While forced vital capacity (FVC) via spirometry has been accepted as the most feasible and reliable tool to assess the deterioration in these patients in clinical practice as well as in randomised controlled trials [1, 2], in recent years both visual evaluation and computer-based analysis of high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) parenchymal patterns have been shown to correlate with disease severity based on FVC and predict outcome in several fibrotic lung diseases, including IPF [3–5].

Source: European Respiratory Journal - March 6, 2019 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Sgalla, G., Larici, A. R., Sverzellati, N., Bartholmai, B., Walsh, S. L. F., Nikolic, D., Barney, A., Fletcher, S., Jones, M., Davies, D. D., Richeldi, L. Tags: Original Articles: Research letters Source Type: research