Abstract
Background: Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) refer to lung diseases characterized by exertional dyspnea, different interstitial patterns on HRCT, and abnormal pulmonary functions.
Objective:To correlate the radiological pattern and extent of involvement of ILDs with pulmonary function tests and verify the radiological functional relationship.
Patients and methods: A total of 44 patients diagnosed as ILDs were recruited to Chest Department, Assiut University Hospitals . They were classified into three groups according to predominant pattern on HRCT:
Group I: Fibrotic pattern including reticular pattern and/ or honeycombing,
Group II: Ground glass pattern,
Group III: Nodular pattern. Pulmonary function tests & O2 saturation via pulse oximetry were done for all patients.
Results: The mean age was 45.7years, most of them were males (63.6%). The most frequent HRCT pattern was the fibrotic one including reticular and honey combing (45.5%). There was significant positive correlation between TLC and DLCO in fibrotic pattern (P value= 0.000), while no correlation could be detected between them in the other two patterns. Moreover, there was significant positive correlation between DLCO and SpO2 in all different patterns (P value= 0.000).
Conclusion: HRCT Patterns and degree of lung involvement of ILDs correlate with pulmonary function parameters. Lung volumes are lower in fibrotic lesion regardless degree of lung involvement, while DLCO among different patterns were dependent upon the degree of lung involvement. Restrictive pulmonary dysfunction correlate with gas exchange in fibrotic pattern while in ground glass one, gas exchange is independent on lung volumes.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016
