Manfredi A, et al. - In an extensive sample of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, researchers intended to obtain validation for a recently developed algorithm (VECTOR- VElcro Crackles detecTOR) to detect the presence of Velcro crackles in pulmonary sounds, by comparing its diagnostic accuracy with that of the reference standard of high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), from a multicentre study. Overall 137 consecutive RA patients who had recently undergone HRCT were included. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) (43.1%) was detected in 59 of 137 patients. With a sensitivity of 93.2% and specificity of 76.9%, the diagnostic accuracy of VECTOR was 83.9%. It correctly classified 115/137 patients. RA patients who are presumed to develop ILD and deserve HRCT for the diagnosis can be screened using VECTOR, which is possibly the first validated tool to serve this purpose.