Background Although immunosuppression is commonly used in HP, there are no studies that compare treatment regimes.

Aims and objectives The aim of this study was to survey specialist ILD consultants to determine how HP is treated in Britain.

Methods British ILD consultants were provided with clinical scenarios, and asked how they would treat patients with HP. They were also asked to rate their level of agreement with a series of statements. A priori ‘consensus agreement’ and ‘majority agreement’ were defined as at least 70% and 50% respectively of participants replying that they ‘Strongly agree’ or ‘Tend to agree’.

Results 54 consultants took part in the survey from 27 centres. The choice of first line immunosuppression in progressive HP was relatively evenly split between dual therapy with corticosteroids plus a ‘steroid-sparing’ immunosuppressant (46%) and monotherapy with oral corticosteroids (39%). On average, the initial starting dose of oral prednisolone (for an 80 kg patient) was 40 mg continued for 6 weeks prior to weaning, aiming for a maintenance of 10 mg. 75% of participants reported that mycophenolate mofetil was their first choice ‘non-corticosteroid immunosuppressant’ for the long-term management of HP. A number of statements relating to the treatment of HP reached consensus or majority agreement (table 1).

Conclusions This survey has demonstrated a degree of variation in the treatment of patients with suspected HP in Britain, but has found consensus and majority agreement for some key areas.