Combination therapy: the future of management for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?

Abstract

Findings from recently published placebo-controlled trials in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis have established that pirfenidone and nintedanib prevent about 50% of the decline in forced vital capacity typically seen in this disease; future trials are therefore unlikely to use placebo as a control group for ethical reasons. Future clinical assessment will probably include add-on trials in which a new drug is combined with an intervention with established efficacy; this development is in turn likely to herald the use of combination regimens in clinical practice. Personalised medicine (the selection of monotherapies on the basis of individualised biomarker signal) is an intrinsically attractive alternative approach, but is unlikely to be useful in routine management of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in the medium-term future because of the complex nature of the disease's pathogenesis. In this Personal View, we review the pleiotropic nature of disease pathogenesis in idiopathic pulmonary disease, the use of combination regimens in other selected chronic lung diseases, and the conceptual basis for combination therapies in interstitial lung disorders other than idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. On the basis of these considerations, and the emergence of data from add-on trials, we believe that the future of management for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis lies in the development of combination regimens.

• Authors: Wim A Wuyts, Katerina M Antoniou, Keren Borensztajn, Ulrich Costabel, Vincent Cottin, Bruno Crestani, Jan C Grutters, Toby M Maher, Venerino Poletti, Luca Richeldi, Carlo Vancheri, Athol U Wells
• Journal: The Lancet. Respiratory medicine (Lancet Respir Med) Vol. 2 Issue 11 Pg. 933-942 (Nov 2014) ISSN: 2213-2619 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 25439569 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Review)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Topics

• Asthma (drug therapy)
• Drug Therapy, Combination
• Humans
• Hypertension, Pulmonary (drug therapy)
• Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (diagnosis, drug therapy, etiology)
• Lung Diseases, Interstitial (diagnosis, drug therapy)
• Lung Neoplasms (drug therapy)
• Precision Medicine
• Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive (drug therapy)