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Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Learning Zone

Expert Opinion

Read time: 20 mins
Last updated:30th Oct 2023
Published:29th Jan 2020

Professor Elisabeth Bendstrup 

Senior consultant and associate professor at the Department of Respiratory Diseases and Allergy at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. She is head of the hospital’s ILD unit (the Danish Centre for Interstitial Lung Diseases and Sarcoidosis), which is a tertiary referral centre for ILD and sarcoidosis.

Find out how Professor Bendstrup answered our questions related to caring for patients with IPF.

Professor Bendstrup also features in our EACCME® accredited CME module: Recognising and optimising care of IPF - click here to access the learning

Why do you, personally, feel that IPF is such an important and fascinating disease?
Do you feel that the identification of genetic polymorphisms and other biomarkers will help improve the diagnosis of IPF? If so, how?
What would you say to a GP or non-specialist who feels that they have higher priorities (e.g. more common diseases) than maintaining an index of suspicion for rare diseases such as IPF?
Why do you feel drugs targeting several biologically plausible mechanisms have not translated into recommended treatments?
Is it a poor understanding of the disease or poorly designed studies?
What do you think is really important for physicians to know about IPF?
What has been your highlight of the ERS Congress 2019?
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Professor Kristin Highland

Associate Program Director for Research and Scholarly Activity and Director of the Rheumatic Lung Disease Programme and an active member of the Interstitial Lung Disease and Pulmonary Hypertension programmes at the Cleveland clinic/Respiratory Institute, Ohio, US.

Find out how Professor Highland answered our questions related to caring for patients with autoimmune ILD.

Why do you, personally, enjoy working in this specialty?
A relatively high proportion of patients develop ILD in some subtypes of CTD. Is this risk adequately appreciated among clinicians managing the underlying autoimmune condition?
What is the most important diagnostic or screening need in autoimmune-ILD either for a specific condition or for the group?
Why does ILD often progress when other aspects of the underlying autoimmune disease seem to be well controlled?
Are there any clinical features (e.g. temporality) that might help differentiate adverse events from ILD?
Is there anything else that you think is really important for physicians to know about ILD?
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