Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about interstitial lung disease.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com slash interstitial lung disease

or in the respiratory section of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Interstitial lung disease includes many conditions that cause inflammation and fibrosis

of the lung paranchimer, which is the lung tissue.

Fibrosis involves the replacement of elastic and

functional lung tissue with non-functional scar tissue. The conditions we'll be covering here are

idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which is the most important one to remember, secondary pulmonary fibrosis, hypersensitivity

pneumonitis, cryptogenic organising pneumonia, and asbestosis.

Let's start with the presentation.

The key presenting features of interstitial lung disease

are shortness of breath on exertion, a dry cough, and general fatigue.

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis have typical findings on examination

of bifasal, fine, end-inspiritry crackles,

so fine crackles at the end of inspiration in both lung bases, and finger-clubbing.

A tom tip for you, remember finger-cl and bifazal fine inspiratory crackles in

idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. These patients are ideal for oskies as they're stable and they

have good signs on examination. Let's talk about making the diagnosis.

Diagnosis of interstitial lung disease involves the clinical features,

high-resolution CT scans of the thorax,

...