„Enthusiast meets the Experienced“: Pneumo meets … Rheumatologie

Abstract

Many complex pulmonary diseases require close cooperation between pneumologists and rheumatologists. For example, almost every rheumatic systemic disease can be accompanied by connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD). This often significantly negatively affects the prognosis. Pneumologists and rheumatologists are jointly called upon in the diagnostic process, especially in the delineation of drug toxicities and in therapeutic decisions. The same applies to various indirect forms of involvement of the lungs and pleura in patients with rheumatic diseases. Nodules and pleural effusions frequently occur but the diagnostic and therapeutic classification can be challenging. Pulmonary artery embolisms can also occur more frequently in certain diseases, such as in antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) and Behçet’s disease. Sometimes severe bronchopathy develops in rheumatoid arthritis, recurrent polychondritis (RP) and granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA). Pulmonary hypertension can also occur in various rheumatic diseases and the classification into one of the five groups is therapeutically important.