Management of patients with pulmonary fibrosis

Abstract Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune systemic disease. Its systemic manifestations include interstitial lung lesions (ILL). According to morphological studies and X-ray computed tomography, the incidence of RA-associated ILL is 60-70% which gives reason to consider pulmonary fibrosis (PF) to be the main form of lung pathology in this disease. PF is a pathological process in the lungs characterized by high mortality rate and refractoriness to therapy. It is a heterogeneous group of disorders with progressive and irreversible destruction of lung architectonics due to scarification that in the end results in organ dysfunction, disturbed gaseous exchange and respiratory distress. Changes in the interstitial lung tissue resulting from local autoimmune rheumatoid inflammation develop by the same mechanisms that underlie idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis used as a model for classification, pathogenesis and treatment of RA-associated ILL. This review is focused on the therapeutic strategy for the management of PF in the context of consensus of the American Thoracic Society (ATS), European Respiratory Society (ERS), Japanese Respiratory Society (JRS) and Latin American Thoracic Association (ALAT, 2010/2011).