Mary Beth Nierengarten | Issue: February 2015 |
SAN FRANCISCO—“Interstitial lung disease is the last bastion of great medicine,” according to Paul Noble, MD, chair, Department of Medicine, director, Women’s Guild Lung Institute, Vera and Paul Guerin Distinguished Chair in Pulmonary Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. Making it great medicine, he said, are the many things still unknown about this disease. In…
No one-size-fits-all approach exists for the care and treatment of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and SSc with pulmonary involvement. Here, experts discuss some best clinical practices for these patients.
Historically, the early approach for treating interstitial lung disease (ILD) due to systemic sclerosis (SSc) involved immunosuppressant therapy, primarily with cytotoxic agents.1 Glucocorticoids in combination with another immunosuppressant agent, such as oral azathioprine or cyclophosphamide, were often used to treat patients with severe, progressive SSc-ILD.2 However, direct evidence to support this therapeutic approach was lacking…
New research recommends that doctors test the sera of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA), as well as closely monitor this population for signs of lung vasculitis…