TY - JOUR T1 - Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: tracking the true occurrence is challenging JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 604 LP - 606 DO - 10.1183/13993003.00958-2015 VL - 46 IS - 3 AU - Jonathan M. Samet AU - David Coultas AU - Ganesh Raghu Y1 - 2015/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/46/3/604.abstract N2 - Tracking patterns of disease incidence and mortality is fundamental to disease control. The story of lung cancer is exemplary; the 20th century epidemic of lung cancer was first detected in western countries as mortality rates rose; initially it affected males more than females; and rates were not uniform across regions and between countries [1]. The epidemiological studies, motivated by the changing patterns of lung cancer occurrence, identified smoking, and occupational and environmental agents as causes of this highly fatal malignancy. Lung cancer mortality rates, which are very close to incidence rates because of the high case-fatality rate of lung cancer, and incidence rates, tracked through cancer registries, have now fallen in the USA and much of Europe in response to successful tobacco control and reduction of exposures to occupational and environmental carcinogens. In the example of lung cancer, tracking of occurrence is facilitated by the close correspondence of mortality with incidence, such that mortality is a reasonable index of occurrence, by the long standing surveillance of cancer through population-based cancer registries in many countries of Europe and much of the USA [2], and by improved diagnosis of lung cancer by increasingly accurate diagnostic methods.IPF is not “just” a rare disease: better diagnosis and reporting by clinicians of this fatal disease is needed http://ow.ly/P284a ER -