TY - JOUR T1 - Could airway basal cells be a novel predictor of mortality in IPF? JF - Breathe JO - Breathe SP - 343 LP - 345 DO - 10.1183/20734735.0265-2019 VL - 15 IS - 4 AU - Louise Organ Y1 - 2019/12/01 UR - http://breathe.ersjournals.com/content/15/4/343.abstract N2 - Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and fatal interstitial lung disease that exhibits a variable trajectory, depending on the individual [1]. Currently, it is very difficult to predict the prognosis of IPF, making the clinical management of the disease a major challenge. Over the years, there have been numerous studies to identify peripheral blood biomarkers, gene variants or clinical features of IPF that correlate to disease outcome [2, 3]. We now understand that the development and progression of IPF occurs due to an abnormal regenerative response in response to damaged epithelium [4]; however, there has been very limited research into specific changes or potential biomarkers that reflect the mechanism of alveolar derangement and disease progression. Whilst lung biopsies taken at diagnosis would be ideal to investigate for potential alveolar-derived biomarkers, they are highly invasive and can be high risk to the patients' health due to post-operative complications. They therefore tend to be avoided in clinic. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), on the other hand, is a minimally invasive procedure, while still providing a sample of the cellular environment with the alveolar region of the lung. Therefore, Prasse et al. [5] sought to investigate the gene expression of BAL samples from IPF patients to address this problem.BAL transcriptomes of IPF patients are enriched with genes from airway basal cells and are predictive of mortality http://bit.ly/2MH3DM1 ER -