The impact of SARS-COV2 pandemic on the management oF IPF patients: Our narrative experience.

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has changed the health-care systems around the world in a remarkable way. We describe the strategies adopted to cope with the limitations imposed by the pandemic to the access to health care by patients diagnosed with idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

Material And Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational analysis including IPF patients under antifibrotic drugs (nintedanib and pirfenidone) that accessed to the Outpatient clinic of the University of Palermo, Italy.

Ambulatory Arterial Stiffness Index (AASI) is Unable to Estimate Arterial Stiffness of Hypertensive Subjects: Role of Nocturnal Dipping of Blood Pressure.

Background: Ambulatory Arterial Stiffness Index (AASI) has been proposed as an indirect and simpler method to estimate the Arterial Stiffness (AS). AASI, calculated from a set of data collected during a 24-hours ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), is defined as 1 minus the regression slope of diastolic on systolic blood pressure (BP) values. For a given increase in diastolic BP, the increase in systolic BP is smaller in a compliant compared to a stiff artery; the stiffer the arterial tree, the closer AASI is to 1.