Acute Exacerbations in Patients With Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

In spite of many studies, the real nature, etiology, pathobiology, and therapy of acute exacerbation (AEx) of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are not clear. It seemed that AEx-IPF may be an acute acceleration of the underlying fibroproliferative process triggered by various extrinsic or unknown insults in the patients with IPF, who have a predisposition to abnormal wound healing and exaggerated fibrosis. This chapter summarizes the previous studies on etiology/triggering factors, risk factors, prognosis, and therapeutic trials with the introduction of the new consensus definition and diagnostic criteria, which remove “idiopathic” from the 2007 consensus definition, to improve the feasibility of future researches.