In 2014, two landmark clinical trials (ASCEND and INPULSIS) were published demonstrating, for the first time, a treatment benefit for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Both pirfenidone and nintedanib were shown to have a clear therapeutic benefit in slowing the relentless disease progression evident in IPF patients. The results of these studies have had a major impact upon management of IPF patients worldwide, with subsequent changes made to international guidelines, which now recommend in favour of antifibrotic therapy. However, this is not the whole story: there are many unanswered questions with regard to the real-world treatment benefit and use of antifibrotic therapy. In this issue of the European Respiratory Journal, Noble et al. [1] present the pooled data of the three multinational, phase 3, placebo-controlled trials of pirfenidone in IPF patients, the ASCEND, and CAPACITY 004 and 006 studies. Examining the combined patient population reveals important insights about specific subgroups along with broader inferences that are only possible through pooled analysis.