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What Other Medicines Can Be Used for Pulmonary Fibrosis?
Other Medicines
Other medicines that your healthcare provider may recommend when treating pulmonary fibrosis include:
- The influenza vaccine (the flu shot) and pneumonia vaccine to help prevent infections
- Cough medicines or oral codeine, which may relieve coughing
- Vitamin D, calcium, and osteoporosis medications to prevent bone loss if you are taking prednisone or another corticosteroid
- Medication for GERD.
Experimental Pulmonary Fibrosis Medicines
A number of medicines are currently being studied in clinical trials that may have some benefit for treating pulmonary fibrosis. However, none of these drugs have been specifically approved for pulmonary fibrosis at this time. This means that they are prescribed off-label to treat the condition.
Some examples of these medications include:
- Colchicine
- Zileuton (Zyflo®)
- Cyclosporine (Gengraf®, Neoral®, Sandimmune®)
- Imatinib (Gleevec®)
- D-penicillamine
- Methotrexate (Rheumatrex®)
- Pirfenidone
- N-acetyl cysteine
- Interferon-gamma-1b (Actimmune®)
- Rituximab (Rituxan®, MabThera®)
- Etanercept (Enbrel®)
- Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5 inhibitors), including:
Written by/reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD
Last reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD