The word “pulmonary” means lung and the word “fibrosis” means scar tissue— similar to scars that you may have on your skin from an old injury or surgery. So, in its simplest sense, pulmonary fibrosis (PF) means scarring in the lungs. No one is certain how many people are affected by PF. One recent study estimated that idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (or IPF, which is just one of more than 200 types of PF) affects 1 out of 200 adults over the age of 60 in the United States—that translates to more than 200,000 people living with PF today. Approximately 50,000 new cases are diagnosed each year and as many as 40,000 Americans die from IPF each year.