IDIOPATHIC PULMONARY FIBROSIS

TREATMENT IN IPF

Treatments tried in IPF

Antifibrotic Activity

Anti-inflammatory

Interferon-g1b

Pirfenidone

Endothelin receptor antagonists

Sildenafil

Etanercept

ACEIs

Statins

NAC

Immunosuppressants

Corticosteroids

Pirfenidone

Treatment options include corticosteroids, immunosuppressive/cytotoxic agents (e.g., azathioprine, cyclophosphamide) , and antifibrotic agents alone or in combination

Recommendation on Steroid/ N-AC monotherapy : New *ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT International IPF guidelines 2011

Patients with IPF should not be treated with corticosteroid monotherapy

(strong recommendation, very low-quality evidence)

Majority of patients with IPF should not be treated with N acetylcysteine monotherapy, but this therapy may be a reasonable choice in a minority (weak recommendation, low-quality evidence)

Recommendation on combination therapy : New *ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT International IPF guidelines 2011

Patients with IPF should not be treated with combination corticosteroid and immunomodulator therapy

(strong recommendation, low-quality evidence)

The majority of patients with IPF should not be treated with combination corticosteroid, azathioprine, and acetylcysteine therapy, but this therapy may be a reasonable choice in a minority (weak recommendation, low quality evidence)

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824

Recommendations for Treatment: ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT International IPF guidelines 2011

Corticosteroid monotherapy +

Colchicine +

Cyclosporine A +

Combined corticosteroid and immune-modulator therapy

++

Interferon gamma 1b ++++

Bosentan +++

Etanercept +++

Treatment recommendations for specific therapies are the following (the quality of evidence is presented as one to four plus signs)A. The recommendation against the use of the following agents for the treatment of IPF is strong (most people in this situation would not want the intervention and

only a small proportion would)

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824

Recommendations for Treatment: ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT International IPF guidelines 2011

Combined acetylcysteine and azathioprine and prednisone

++

Pirfenidone ++

N - Acetylcysteine monotherapy ++

Anticoagulation +

B. The recommendation against the use of the following agents for the treatment of IPF is weakFor the well-informed patient who strongly desires pharmacologic treatment, it is suggested that the choice of agent may be made from therapies that received a weak recommendation against their use

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824

PANTHER- IPF trial

Most clinicians typically are treating patients with a combination of prednisone, azathioprine, and N-acetylcysteine as triple therapy based on the positive results from the IFIGENIA trial

PANTHER-IPF is the three arm multi-center clinical trial Trial tests prednisone, azathioprine, and N-

acetylcysteine (NAC) triple therapy vs. placebo, and NAC alone vs. placebo, on lung function and other health outcomes in patients with newly-diagnosed with IPF

PANTHER- IPF trial

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute(NHLBI) halted the triple therapy arm when it noted significantly higher mortality, hospitalization, and adverse event rates compared with the placebo and NAC arms without evidence of benefit

Also patients assigned to the triple- therapy arm had lower treatment adherence vs. other arms(78 % adherence versus 98 % adherence)

Anticoagulation trial

NHLBI suspended enrolment and treatment in the phase 3, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled ACE-IPF trial designed to test the effectiveness of warfarin (anticoagulation) in IPF patients

This trial was stopped by Data and Safety Monitoring Board as results showed that warfarin is ineffective and potentially harmful as a therapy for patients with this disease

Hence among the options available

Combined acetylcysteine and azathioprine and prednisone

×

Pirfenidone √

Acetylcysteine monotherapy × ???

Anticoagulation (warfarin) ×

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824

Pirfenidone showed clinical improvement

Conventional treatment is it safe?

However this recommendation is now being challenged in wake of the results from the recently halted prednisone, azathioprine, and NAC (triple therapy) arm of the PANTHER study in IPF patients because of safety concerns

Participants treated with triple therapy had more mortality, more serious adverse events, and more drug discontinuations, without evidence of benefit

Combined prednisolone (tapering from 0.5 mg/day to 10–20 mg/ day) with azathioprine (2 mg/kg, maximum 150 mg/ day) and NAC (600 mg three times daily): based on the results of the IFIGENIA trial in IPF

Why the need for an antifibrotic?

Most diagnosed patients with IPF are in the fibroproliferative phase and not in the early inflammatory stage hence the need for an antifibrotic drug1

Evolving hypothesis suggests that fibrosis results from epithelial injury and abnormal wound healing2

Little evidence that inflammation is prominent in early disease and may not be relevant to the development of fibrosis 2

Anti-inflammatory therapy does not improve disease outcome 2

Hence IPF is a result of fibroblast dysfunction rather than dysregulated inflammation2

1. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 199; 159: 1061-1069 2. Ann Intern Med. 2001;134:136-151

First and only approved treatment of IPF

PIRFENIDONE

Pirfenidone :First and only approved drug in IPF

Only approved drug for the treatment of IPF Pirfenidone, is a novel anti-fibrotic agent, which has been

approved for IPF treatment in Japan, Europe and in India and evaluated in the largest number of IPF patients in clinical trials

A recent Cochrane meta-analysis, concluded that pirfenidone is the only agent proven to produce a clinically relevant effect

Slow down the decline in lung function and has a significant 30% improvement in progression-free survival in IPF

The starting dose is 600 mg/day, which is stepped up gradually to 1,200 mg/day over 2 weeks and, finally, to 1,800 mg/day over the next 2 weeks

1.ID Drugs 2004; 7: 166-1722.Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 9. Art. No.: CD003134

Pirfenidone Japanese Phase III studies : Effect on VC/Progression free survival

Eur Resp J Dec 2009 epubEur Respir J 2010; 35: 821–829.

•Significant lesser VC decline with high-dose pirfenidone (-0.09 L) compared to placebo (-0.16 L) (p=0.04)

•Significantly improved progression free survival time with high-dose pirfenidone as compared to placebo (p=0.0280)

CAPACITY TRIALS: Pirfenidone pooled analysis

•Significantly lesser FVC decline with pirfenidone compared to placebo (-8.5% vs. -11.0%; p = 0.005)

Lancet. 2011;377(9779):1760-9.

CAPACITY TRIALS: Pirfenidone pooled analysis

Significantly lesser FVC decline with pirfenidone as compared to placebo in IPF

Significant reduction in risk of death or progression of disease with pirfenidone as compared to placebo

Preservation of walk distance during 6MWT (Week 72) with pirfenidone as compared to placebo

Fewer patients had % predicted FVC decline ≥10% with pirfenidone as compared to placebo

Meta-analysis of Pirfenidone trials: Presented at the American Thoracic Society Meeting May 2010

Conclusion: N = 1054Hazard ratio: of 0.71 for PFS

Pirfenidone reduced the risk of death or disease progression by 29% in patients of IPF

Effect on FVC/VC

Effect on progression free survival (PFS)

Other novel agents

N-acetylcysteine (N-AC): Epithelial injury in IPF may be mediated by oxygen radicals; hence antioxidant strategies like NAC might prove beneficial

Anticoagulation: There is limited data from earlier studies, also a recent trial showed that treatment with warfarin was associated with an increased risk of mortality

Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2000;161:646-664.

Interferon Gamma-1b

Lancet 2009;374:222-28.

AJRCCM 2010Kaplan–Meier survival estimate for each treatment group

•No effects of bosentan were observed in changes from baseline to 1 year in health-related quality of life or dyspnea

•Small , nonsignificant delay in the time to IPFworsening (excluding death) •Small differences favoring the bosentan treatment group in changes from baseline to 1 year in absolute FVC and DLCO

ACE-IPF study :Warfarin in IPF

•No benefit for warfarin in the treatment of patients with progressive IPF•Treatment with warfarin was associated with an increased risk ofmortality in an IPF population who lacked other indications for anticoagulation

Due to a low probability of benefit, and an increase in mortality observedin the subjects randomized to warfarin (14 warfarin vs. 3 placebo deaths; p=0.005), anindependent Data and Safety Monitoring Board recommended stopping the study after145 of the planned 256 subjects were enrolled (72 warfarin, 73 placebo). The meanfollow-up was 28 weeks.

Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2012;186:88-95.

All-Cause Mortality or All-Cause HospitalizationKaplan-Meier Plot

Nonpharmacologic Therapies Lung transplantation Supplemental oxygen : strongly recommended in patients with

clinically significant resting hypoxemia (commonly defined by a resting SpO2 of <88%)

Pulmonary rehabilitation Improvement in general and disease-specific health status Increased exercise tolerance Mechanical ventilation: associated with high mortality in IPF;

hence, it should be used only after discussion with patients and their caregivers

Screen for pulmonary hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, cough, gastroesophageal reflux disease etc

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183:788–824.

Treatment of Selected Complications and Comorbid Conditions

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824.

Acute exacerbation of IPF Majority of patients should be treated with corticosteroids however there are no specific recommendations regarding the dose

Pulmonaryhypertension associated with IPF

In patients with moderate-to-severe pulmonary hypertension after right heart catheterization trial of vasomodulatory therapy may be indicated

Asymptomatic Gastroesophageal reflux in patients with IPF

Weak recommendation to medically treat asymptomatic GERD in the majority of patients with IPF

Obesity, emphysema, and obstructive sleep apnea

No data to make recommendations for the treatment of these in the setting of IPF

Chronic cough in IPF Corticosteroids and thalidomide may be beneficial

Causes of death

Death rates increase with increasing age, consistently higher in men than women

Seasonal variation, with the highest death rates seen in the winter, even when infections are excluded

With the revised diagnostic criteria for IPF, only 20 to 30% of subjects were alive 5 years after diagnosis

Most deaths occur from progression of lung fibrosis rather than from commonly occurring comorbid conditions

Frequent hospitalizations for respiratory problems are common events and are often associated with death

Chest 2009;136:16–22.Ann Intern Med 2005;142:963–967.Lancet 2009;374:222–228.

Features associated with an increased risk of mortality in IPF

Baseline factors*

Level of dyspnea†

DLCO <40% predicted

Desaturation ≤ 88% during 6MWT

Extent of honeycombing on HRCT†

Pulmonary hypertension

*Baseline FVC is of unclear predictive value. † Currently, there is no uniformity in approach to quantification.

Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2011; 183: 788–824.

Longitudinal factors

Increase in level of dyspnea†

Decrease in FVC by >10% absolute value

Decrease in DLCO by >15% absolute

value

Worsening of fibrosis on HRCT†

THE END