Home monitoring in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis; improving use of anti-fibrotic medication and quality of life

Project summary

Idiopathic lung fibrosis (IPF) is a deadly disease where scarring of the lungs leads to progressive decrease of lung function and quality of life.
A good development is the availability of two new drugs (fibrosis inhibitors) that slow the progression of IPF. Patients come every three months to the hospital for control, including lung functionality tests. However, for optimization of the medication this is too little while more controls are a burden for these patients. This leads to unnecessary side effects and stoppage of the medication.
Current research will investigate if a home monitoring system, consisting of an internet tool, lung functionality tests at home and patient experience reports will increase the use of medication and will increase the quality of life.
All patients who start with fibrose inhibitors could participate and lottery determines whether they will enroll in the home monitoring system in addition to standard care or whether they only receive the standard care.

This study will investigate the effectiveness of a medication and the quality of life of IPF patients receiving fibrosis inhibitors will increase with an additional home monitoring program versus the current standard care.