Efficacy and Safety of Inhaled Treprostinil in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Bajpai Jyoti J, Pradhan Akshyaya A, Manek Gaurav G, Maurya Shivani S et al.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive fibrotic interstitial lung disease with high morbidity and mortality. Inhaled treprostinil showed pulmonary vascular and lung-function signals in pulmonary hypertension associated with Interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD) and was subsequently tested in IPF trials. This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the efficacy and safety of inhaled treprostinil in adults with IPF. PubMed, Google Scholar and the Cochrane Library/CENTRAL were searched for records published from January 2000 to 2026. A random-effects meta-analysis used the DerSimonian-Laird tau squared and inverse-variance weighting methods. Continuous outcomes were pooled as generic inverse-variance effects from reported estimates and 95% confidence intervals. Hazard ratios were pooled on the log scale. Safety outcomes were pooled as risk ratios from event counts. The searches identified 1552 records. After deduplication, 379 records were screened and 85 full-text reports were assessed. Eleven reports were included in the systematic review. TETON-1 and TETON-2 were the two direct-IPF randomized trials within the coordinated TETON program eligible for primary meta-analysis. Inhaled treprostinil improved absolute forced vital capacity (FVC) change at 52 weeks compared with placebo (MD 111.28 mL, 95% CI 77.61 to 144.95, p < 0.001; I squared 8.5%). Clinical worsening was reduced (HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.84, p < 0.001; I squared 0.0%). Acute exacerbation was lower in pooled analysis (HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.91, p = 0.022), while all-cause mortality did not differ significantly (HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.47 to 1.05, p = 0.086). Adverse-event discontinuation, cough and headache were more frequent with treprostinil. In direct IPF randomized evidence, inhaled treprostinil preserved lung function and reduced clinical worsening at 52 weeks.