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Still, in many cases patients do not have access to the treatment. Part of the problem is misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. Both health-care professionals and patients need to be educated about the symptoms, and practitioners need to be made aware of the new management options because until recently if lung transplant was not possible, there was no treatment.

As well, patients have varying degrees of access to the only approved treatment because of cost, which can run to about $3,000 per month. The majority of private insurance plans do support it. That said, the median age of patients is 67, which means they are past retirement and likely to rely on publicly funded provincial health care insurance. To date, the only province that will cover the cost of the treatment is Quebec.

Another challenge: consensus guidelines that hinge on a high level of evidence-based research lag behind clinical practice. The last time consensus guidelines for the treatment of IPF were released was 2011. Dr. Chan is optimistic that with the new research, the treatment will be endorsed when the guidelines are next updated.

In many ways, the new treatment is analogous to the introduction of AZT, the first drug treatment for HIV, in the late 1980s. “I was treating patients then and I can tell you that within five or six years of its introduction, three or four other drugs entered the market and we began to use multiple drugs in combination to get better results. Within 10 years, we changed the outlook of HIV. Some of the patients I cared for in the early 1990s are still alive 20 years later. AZT was the game changer,” says Dr. Chan. “That’s why I’m excited about IPF treatment going forward. We now have one drug that’s already improving outcomes and a second one that looks very good and should be available next year, and three or four more in trial stages. I am cautiously optimistic that five years from now we will be able to choose between three or four drugs based on what we think will benefit the patient the most, and even look at the effectiveness of combination therapy.”

This story was produced by Postmedia’s advertising department on behalf of the Canadian Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation for commercial purposes. Postmedia’s editorial departments had no involvement in the creation of this content.