Rheumatological Assessment Is Important for Interstitial Lung Disease Diagnosis

Abstract

Adding routine rheumatology assessments could significantly increase diagnostic accuracy and reduce invasive procedures.

Patients with Interstitial Lung Disease Secondary to Autoimmune Diseases: How to Recognize Them?

“…The differential diagnosis of conditions underlying ILD is a fascinating topic involving many physicians of different specialties. Currently, the gold standard for the diagnostic assessment of ILD is MDT and the presence of rheumatologists among them has proved to be useful to reduce the need for invasive exams [4,139]. The role of rheumatologists in MDT is probably more important considering the possible selection bias in the study of ADs-ILD.…”

“…Obviously, the correct diagnostic assessment of ILD patients has important consequences in prognosis and treatment. Although the rheumatologic evaluation has proved to be effective in reducing invasive exams, currently the rheumatologist figure is not widely present in MDTs [3,4]. The reasons can be numerous: lack of rheumatologists (or of rheumatologists with lung expertise), difficulty in organizing MDTs, and the underestimation of the rheumatologist's potential role.…”

Contemporary Concise Review 2018: Interstitial lung disease

“…In particular, the role of pulmonary hypertension (PH) was investigated in the last year because, despite the general improvement of PH survival in the last decade, management in the context of ILD disease remains difficult as well as the discordance between transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and the right heart catheter (RHC) is nowadays progressively recognized . Recently, additional subtypes of ILD with autoimmune features were defined making the role of rheumatological assessment increasingly important to improve the diagnostic accuracy . The serological angle of ILD has been gradually investigated to understand the predictive role in clinical progression or mortality.…”

Discusión multidisciplinaria para el diagnóstico de la fibrosis pulmonar idiopática

“…En nuestra opinión es de vital importancia la presencia de un reumatólogo. En un estudio reciente se informa que la inclusión del reumatólogo en el Cmd en la evaluación de una EPI de reciente diagnóstico permitió la reclasificación del 21% de los pacientes 5 . Los diagnósticos de vasculitis aNCa, síndrome antisintetasa e IPaF (interstitial pneumonia with autoimmune features) fueron los diagnósticos más frecuentes realizados posterior a la evaluación por reumatología.…”