A paper published March 22 in the journal Chest highlighted research that found patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) who had poor quality of life specifically related to cough were more likely to be hospitalized for respiratory issues, need a lung transplant and die. The findings in 1,447 patients matter because they back previous investigations and provide a way of predicting the advance of ILD, of which idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a prominent type. A handful of companies are working on drugs to tackle cough in IPF, often an early symptom of the disease.