10 Symptoms of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF)

10. 10. Disease has a long development period

IPF usually starts with a persistent cough, but other symptoms might not appear until up to two years later. This makes it hard for the doctor to make an accurate diagnosis. IPF is a rare disease with only about 30,000 new cases each year across the whole of the European Union. Doctors easily confuse it with the much more common asthma, and sometimes it exists in the patient's body alongside asthma.