Recently, the National Institutes of Health granted funding for a study that will take a closer look at Interstitial Lung Disease, or ILD, a connective tissue disorder that causes inflammation and potentially serious damage to the lungs.
"This study will look at the clinical course of the disease in patients with autoimmune ILD - using biomarkers and medical records - and will help physicians determine which treatments tend to be the most beneficial," he says. "This research focuses on associating patient and disease characteristics with the best outcomes."You can read more about this study here.
ILD can be caused by a variety of factors, among them: chronic exposure to environmental toxins, infections, radiation, medication side effects, and autoimmune diseases including Sjogren's syndrome. The Mayo clinic has a good overview of this disease here.
The announcement of funding for studies with the intent to closely examine ILD and the autoimmune relationship is long overdue. Medical literature frequently comments that incidence of ILS in Sjogren's syndrome needs further examination to provide reliable data.
You can read more about ILD in Sjogren's syndrome here, here, and here.
Image courtesy of adamci
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