Invasive mechanical ventilation in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or idiopathic non-specific interstitial pneumonia.

(Intern Med 50: 173-174, 2011) (DOI: 10.2169/internalmedicine.50.4363) To the Editor We read with great interest the papers by Tomii and colleagues and Yokoyama and colleagues concerning the use of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in managing life-threatening acute exacerbation of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (1, 2). We recently reviewed the data of 30 patients suffering of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF; n= 22) or idiopathic non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP; n=18), according to the international consensus statement, admitted in our intensive care unit (ICU) for acute respiratory failure (ARF) between 01/01/1999 and 31/12/2009 (Table 1). We chose to associate the two patterns in the same