EDITORIAL - RA and interstitial lung disease

[Guest guest]

Rheumatology Advance Access originally published online on March 11, 2010

Rheumatology 2010 49(8):1425-1426; doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keq017

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Editorials

Rheumatoid arthritis and interstitial lung disease

Guy Brusselle1

Department of Respiratory Medicine, Ghent University Hospital and

Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

A dangerous liaison

This editorial refers to ‘Interstitial lung disease has a poor

prognosis in rheumatoid arthritis: results from an inception cohort’,

by Gouri Koduri et al., doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keq035, on page 1483.

Although RA is defined as a symmetrical inflammatory arthropathy, a

wide variety of extra-articular manifestations are seen in patients

with RA. The pleuropulmonary manifestations of RA encompass airway

diseases (e.g. bronchiolitis obliterans), pleural diseases (e.g.

pleuritis with or without effusion) and parenchymal pulmonary diseases

[1, 2]. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is associated with RA

(RA-ILD), but the prevalence, incidence and natural history are not

well defined. The prevalence of ILD in RA depends on the population

selected for study (mild vs severe disease) and the methods applied

for its detection (clinical, physiological, radiological or

pathological). The paper by Koduri et al. [3] in this issue of

Rheumatology sheds light on the incidence and the natural history of

RA-ILD.

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Read the full editorial here:

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/49/8/1425?etoc

Not an MD