Alsumrain M et al. – This retrospective study evaluated the frequency of incident connective–tissue disease related interstitial lung disease (CTD–ILD) diagnosed by autoimmune serology testing and the clinical signs and symptoms in a large cohort of patients with uncharacterized interstitial lung disease (ILD; N = 605). The results of these autoimmune serology testing in delineating uncharacterized ILD appeared greatest in patients with suggestive clinical signs or symptoms for CTD–ILD.

Methods

• Serologic assessments conducted were a set of 13 laboratory tests.
• The clinical signs and symptoms were correlated with the test results (presence or absence of positive serology studies) and final CTD–ILD diagnoses.

Results

• The overall prevalence of newly diagnosed CTD–ILD was 6.9% and positive serology was 35.2% of screened ILD.
• In total, 19.2% of those with positive serology, 52.8% of those with both positive serology and suggestive clinical signs or symptoms, and only 1.4% of with both positive serology and negative review of systems were diagnosed with CTD–ILD.
• Frequent diagnosis of CTD–ILD was conducted in younger patients (≤60 years of age) with no diagnoses after 80 years of age (P = .009).
• No survival advantage was identified for patients with positive serology in non–CTD–ILD cases.