Imaging Features of Autoimmune Disease-Related Interstitial Lung Diseases

Abstract

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) associated with autoimmune diseases show characteristic signs of imaging. Radiologic signs are also used in the identification of ILDs with features suggestive of autoimmune disease that do not meet the criteria for a specific autoimmune disease. Radiologists play a key role in identifying these signs and assessing their relevance as part of multidisciplinary team discussions. A radiologist may be the first health care professional to pick up signs of autoimmune disease in a patient referred for assessment of ILD or with suspicion for ILD. Multidisciplinary team discussion of imaging findings observed during follow-up may inform a change in diagnosis or identify progression, with implications for a patient’s treatment regimen. This article describes the imaging features of autoimmune disease-related ILDs and the role of radiologists in assessing their relevance.

Steady Progress in Interstitial Lung Disease

“…Although the medical management of fibrotic ILDs has traditionally been limited to those patients specifically with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the FDA approved the expansion of nintedanib for the broader category of progressive fibrosing ILD in 2020, after it showed efficacy in this patient population 8 . Although this might ultimately allow a simplification of our current imaging classification system, differentiating the appropriate disease pattern is still currently required for both diagnostic and prognostic purposes, and Oscarelli et al 9 and Adams et al 10 provide reviews of autoimmune ILDs and idiopathic ILDs, respectively.…”