I hadn't heard about this article until just now so thought I'd share it. My doctor did not recommend that I try this treatment as he felt that the variety of IPF I had wouldn't be helped by it, but I know of a lot of people who were really happy with the results they had on it. So I am kind of surprised at this report. At least there seems to be hope that it will help people with mild to moderate symptoms.

Interferon a No-Go for Pulmonary Fibrosis

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 7 (HealthDayNews) -- A once hopeful treatment for pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal disease of the lungs, appears to have little or no effect on progression of the disease or on quality of life, a new study has found.

There remains some optimism, however, that the treatment, interferon gamma-1b, might benefit patients with mild to moderate symptoms of the disease. The authors of the study, which appears in the Jan. 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, are launching a new trial to test this hypothesis.

The median survival time for patients diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis is only two to three years. The disease results in a scarring of the lungs that eventually prevents the lungs from fulfilling their primary mission of delivering oxygen to the body. The only effective treatment is lung transplantation, although many people are treated with anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, both of which have side effects... [www.medicinenet.com]

As for me, I'm just waiting for a lung to come up for me on the transplant list and wondering why this article just popped into my aggregator now if the article is from January.