Rheumatological Assessment Is Important for Interstitial Lung Disease Diagnosis.

J Rheumatol

From the Internal Medicine Department E and Pulmonary Department, Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba; Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv; Internal Medicine Department A, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel; Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

Published: November 2018

Objective: Interstitial lung diseases (ILD) form a diverse group of parenchymal lung disorders. Currently, a multidisciplinary team (MDT) including pulmonologists, radiologists, and pathologists is the gold standard for ILD diagnosis. Recently, additional subtypes of connective tissue disease (CTD)-ILD with autoimmune features were defined, making the rheumatological assessment increasingly important. We aimed to assess the effect of adding a rheumatologist to the MDT for routine rheumatology assessment.

Methods: A prospective study that assessed newly diagnosed ILD patients by 2 parallel blinded arms; all patients were evaluated by both MDT (e.g., history, physical examination, blood tests, pulmonary function tests, and biopsies, if needed) and a rheumatologist (e.g., history, physical examination, blood and serological tests).

Results: Sixty patients were assessed with the mean age of 67.3 ± 12 years, 55% male, and 28% smokers. The rheumatological assessment reclassified 21% of the idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis as CTD. Moreover, the number of CTD-ILD with autoimmune features was increased by 77%. These included antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis, antisynthetase syndrome, and IgG4-related ILD. Retrospectively, rheumatological evaluation could have saved 7 bronchoscopies and 1 surgical biopsy.

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

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http://dx.doi.org/10.3899/jrheum.171314DOI Listing

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