The effect of a real-life multidisciplinary discussion on ILD diagnosis

What is it about?

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) consist of a wide group of lung diseases which are difficult to diagnose. To optimize accurate diagnosis, guidelines suggest to discuss difficult ILD cases in a multidisciplinary discussion, with expert pulmonologists, radiologists, pathologists and other ILD experts to establish a definite diagnosis. In this study, we evaluated the effect of such an expert MDD by comparing the MDD diagnosis with the preliminary diagnosis at referral. We showed that the MDD managed to establish a definite diagnosis in 80% of cases, providing advice in almost all others for further investigations. In 42% of cases, the MDD changed the diagnosis. The difference in survival between IPF and nonIPF diagnoses was more pronounced with MDD diagnoses compared to referral diagnoses, indicating the accuracy of MDD diagnoses.

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Why is it important?

Although international guidelines suggested multidisciplinary discussion since many years, this study was the first to show the beneficial effect of MDD diagnosing ILD in a real-life context.