Interstitial lung diseases in women

Abstract

Introduction. Interstitial lung diseases include a heterogeneous group of disorders that may affect men and women, but some of them are more frequent in females. Therefore, it is very important to take into account the female gender as a specific risk factor for some of these diseases. Discussion and Review of Literature. Interstitial lung diseases in women include the following: 1. diseases specific for female gender such as lymphangioleiomyomatosis, 2. disorders predominant in women due to the underlying disease (breast cancer and collagen vascular diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, progressive systemic sclerosis, dermatomyositis and polymyositis, Sj?gren syndrome), 3. idiopathic lung diseases predominant in women such an idiopathic eosinophilic pneumonia, 4. interstitial lung diseases predominant in women for unknown reason. All of these diseases have a wide spectrum of thoracic manifestations. Chest x-ray is a basic method for the detection, but computerized tomography is more useful for the assessment of the extensivity of parenchymal, airway and pleural manifestations of these diseases. Conclusion. A great variety of manifestations of interstitial lung diseases in women makes their detailed review impossible. Therefore, this article gives a short and overall review of these conditions.