Epidemiology of Pulmonary Fibrosis

In this post I will be going over the epidemiology of pulmonary fibrosis and I will be using most of my information from the article Epidemiology of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. While this sounds like a very long and complicated word it actually has a pretty basic definition. Epidemiology is defined as the study of patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in populations. So the epidemiology of pulmonary fibrosis is about how the disease has spread and what has caused the disease to occur. The epidemiology of pulmonary fibrosis is a bit hard to track though because it is somewhat rare and there have been changes in the way it is diagnosed.

 Both the occurrence and the mortality are beginning to increase with this disease and the frequency of it is also supposed to increase in the aging population. The mortality rate is reported to be about 5 per every 100,00 persons. The potential risk factors include occupational exposures, environmental hazards, tobacco smoking, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), and genetic factors. All of these things work together to cause scarring of the lungs which in the end makes it more difficult to breath.

Within the United States about 128,100 people are affected by pulmonary fibrosis and about 48,000 new cases are diagnosed a year. Another study showed that there are roughly 3-6 cases per 100,000 in general populations.  This disease normally occurs in middle aged to older adults (between 40 and 70 years of age) and it is slightly more common in males. There has also been no distinct pattern of geographical distribution within the United States and world wide. It has been seen equally in both rural and urban settings and there seems to be no link with any ethnicity or race. Within the United States there is a slight difference in the age-adjusted mortality. This difference is probably due to the changes in occupational and environmental exposures throughout the country. The age-adjusted mortality is lowest in the Midwest and Northeast and highest in the West and Southeast.

I hope this helped you to better understand the distribution and patterns of pulmonary fibrosis! See you next week!

References

Ley, B., & Collard, H. (2013, January 25). Epidemiology of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848422/

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: Diagnosis and TreatmentInternational Consensus Statement. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/ajrccm.161.2.ats3-00#.VLtWofF8R8E

Facts About Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis - Coalition For Pulmonary Fibrosis. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.coalitionforpf.org/facts-about-idiopathic-pulmonary-fibrosis/