Pragmatic treatment decisions in IPF
Unfortunately we still do not have very good treatments for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The antifibrotics that we have (in 2022) only seem slow down the generally inevitable progress of IPF. To complicate matters further, in certain countries (in this example…
How to deal with chronic cough in ILD
Chronic cough is a major symptom in interstitial lung diseases (ILD), especially as the fibrotic process progresses. No matter what the ILD diagnosis is, dry debilitating cough can go alongside breathlessness and really impact our patients’ quality of life. In…
Why do I enjoy working as an Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILD) doctor?
In this video I talk about why I like working as an ILD physician, a bit about my background and what are my plans for this educational project (interstitiallungdisease.info). I started posting some content already, however I was worried that…
How to diagnose IPF when autoimmune abnormalities are present?
How to diagnose idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) when autoimmune screening reveals the presence of autoantibodies? Atypical presentations of IPF can be relatively common and interpreting the results of autoimmune screening when no connective tissue disease features are present can be…
Classification of interstitial lung disease (ILD)
The classification of interstitial lung disease (ILD) can be difficult. ILD is an umbrella term – some say it covers hundreds of conditions or entities. This seems to me as an exaggeration to highlight the complex nature of ILD (especially…
Classification of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs)
In this short video I present the 2013 ATS/ERS classification of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs). IIPs are interstitial lung diseases where the cause is not known. The best known IIP is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), although there are a few…
What is the normal BAL fluid differential cell count?
In this short video I present the normal differential cell count for bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid according to the American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2012 clinical practice guideline (in nonsmokers). The BAL fluid differential cell count is very useful in the…
