Introduction:

Diffuse interstitial lung diseases constitute a wide group of conditions, with clinical manifestations, radiological expression and functional alterations of the pulmonary interstitium.

Objective:

To describe the clinical and radiological behavior of symptomatic diffuse interstitial disease in patients diagnosed with collagenosis.

Methods:

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out. The population consisted of 33 patients with respiratory manifestations secondary to rheumatic diseases. The sample consisted of all the patients. Statistical analysis was carried out by means of descriptive statistics for each variable.

Results:

There was a greater number of women affected (75.8%) by systemic sclerosis (31%), rheumatoid arthritis (27%) and systemic lupus erythematosus (21%). The predominant respiratory involvement was 81.8% with interstitial involvement associated with a radiological pattern of usual interstitial pneumonitis with 5 cases (21.4%), all linked to rheumatoid arthritis. For 25 cases (75.8%) there was a diagnostic delay of less than 1-year, rheumatic diseases preceded the respiratory manifestation in 21 cases (63.6%).

Conclusions:

Interstitial involvement was the most frequent respiratory manifestation; the patterns of usual interstitial pneumonitis and nonspecific interstitial pneumonia as predominated imaging findings. The diagnostic sequence pointed towards rheumatic diseases were the debut of the process.

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