Clinical Course of Interstitial Lung Diseases: European IPF Registry and Biobank

Overview

Born out of the European Union 7th Framework Programme funded project European IPF Network (eurIPFnet), the European IPF Registry (eurIPFreg) has become Europe's leading database of longitudinal data from IPF patients, including control groups of patients with other lung diseases. The registry was initiated with the intention of creating a permanent and continuously growing record of well defined data on IPF in Europe, in order to increase the chances of finding better treatment options for this devastating disease. Clinical colleagues who would like to actively participate (both in terms of patient recruitment and data analysis) are invited to contact us (http://www.pulmonary-fibrosis.net/).

The group's work aims to foster research on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), the most aggressive form of an Idiopathic Interstitial Pneumonia (IIP). Within the eurIPFreg we, the eurIPFreg steering committee and a growing number of external site investigators, aim to describe the natural course of IPF and other IIPs, to identify risk factors that are associated with the evolution of the disease and to sample biomaterials that may serve as underlying basis for translational research activities. IPF and non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP), as well as the other entities of IIPs (cryptogenic organizing pneumonia, COP; desquamative interstitial pneumonia, DIP; respiratory bronchiolitis interstitial lung disease, RB-ILD; lymphoid interstitial pneumonia, LIP; acute interstitial pneumonia, AIP) are frequently progressive, fibroproliferative diseases of unknown etiology, affecting the lung parenchyma. Patients with IPF have the most devastating prognosis within the group of IIPs, with a median survival rate of 2-3 years.

Conditions