Tim Bongartz, MD, a rheumatologist and assistant professor of medicine, who was out of the country and unavailable for comment, writes that based on those numbers, ILD appears to be as deadly for people with rheumatoid arthritis as congestive heart failure, which is currently responsible for about 1 in 8 early deaths in patients with RA.
The study was also able to shed some light on who is most likely to develop an RA-related interstitial lung disease.
Being a man appeared to be the most potent factor. Men in the study had a more than four-fold risk of developing ILD compared to women. Other significant risks included an older age at diagnosis, higher disease activity and treatment with either methotrexate or corticosteroids.
Researchers admit some shortcomings to their study, too. For one, participants were mainly white, so they don’t know if their results would be replicated in a more ethnically diverse group.
The research team also writes that it’s tough to come up with a clear definition of ILD, since it currently includes a variety of different types of lung disease.
Dr. Noth says while it is nice to know how often this is happening, he would like future research to look at why it’s occurring, to better understand the mechanisms at play. But he says as far as he’s concerned, these new findings raise the question now of what, if any preventative screening the medical community should be doing.
“Its not that we didn’t know it was happening, but I didn’t know it was 10 percent,” he says. “ Should we be screening these patients on a regular basis? Do you want regular CT scans, maybe yearly or regular pulmonary function tests to see if they are developing an interstitial lung disease which could be terminal?”
Until the medical community makes those decisions, he says this will be an individualized issue, so he stresses that if RA patients are short of breath, they need to talk with their doctor and get evaluated.
