Lung ultrasound outperforms symptom-based screening to detect interstitial lung disease associated with rheumatoid arthritis
Authors' conclusion
LUS is a promising tool for early detection of RA-ILD, outperforming symptom-based questionnaires or the presence of dyspnoea or cough.
Study context
- Population
- Adult patients with RA presenting to the rheumatology outpatient clinic
- Participants
- 116 patients
- Comparison
- Lung ultrasound (LUS) vs symptom-based screening for detecting RA-ILD, against high-resolution CT (HRCT)
- Outcome
- Detection of RA-ILD (clinical and subclinical ILD on HRCT): sensitivity, specificity and AUROC
Methodological detailssingle-centre outpatient clinic
- Single-centre outpatient clinic
Performance
As reported in the abstract
B-lines showed area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUROCs)>0.9 for predicting subclinical and clinical ILD
>0.9
Further findings
ILD prevalence on HRCT
- ILD detected on HRCT
- 11.8%
- Subclinical interstitial lung changes
- 5%
Association with clinical-radiological HRCT score
- Number of B-lines (kruskal-Wallis (KW) χ²)
- 41.2, p=<0.001
- DLCO%pred (KW χ²)
- 27.4, p=<0.001
- FVC%pred, mMRC and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) cough not significantly correlated
Parts of this Brief are withheld: the automatic checks could not confirm them against the abstract.
Original publication
Lung ultrasound outperforms symptom-based screening to detect interstitial lung disease associated with rheumatoid arthritis. RMD Open. Published 26 February 2025. doi:10.
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