BMC Pulmonary Medicine is calling for submissions to our Collection on connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease.

Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) is a common manifestation of several systemic autoimmune connective tissue diseases (CTDs). While ILD can manifest with all CTDs, it most commonly affects individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA, 10-30%), systemic sclerosis (SSc, 40-80%), and idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM, 40%). In some patients, ILD could also be the initial or only manifestation of an underlying CTD and the research classification “interstitial pneumonia with autoimmune features (IPAF)” was recently proposed to identify these patients. ILD poses a significant burden, contributing to morbidity and mortality among CTD patients. Given the complexity in the diagnosis and treatment of CTD-related ILD, a multidisciplinary approach to management is crucial.

Over the years, advances in research have improved our understanding and management of CTD-related ILD. However, there are still significant gaps in our knowledge. With the emergence of new therapies for this patient population, there is an increased need to identify clinical characteristics and biomarkers that could predict those who are likely to develop ILD and/or have progressive disease.  There is also a continued need to understand additional mechanistic pathways that lead to ILD, in order to develop novel therapies.  

For this research topic collection, BMC Pulmonary Medicine invites basic and clinical research papers that could enhance our understanding of CTD-associated ILD and contribute to the advancement of  patient care.

Topics of interest for this Collection include but are not limited to:

• Mechanisms and genetics associated with CTD-ILD
• Epidemiology of CTD-ILD: prevalence, mortality, hospitalizations
• Early diagnosis, risk predictors and biomarkers that could predict development and prognosis of CTD-ILD
• Novel therapies for CTD-ILD
• Barriers/limitations to timely care
• Multidisciplinary approach to diagnosis and treatment, and other treatment models

Meet the Guest Editors

Bruno Guedes Baldi: University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Brazil

Dr Bruno Guedes Baldi is a Pulmonologist. He is the Medical Assistant of the Pulmonary Division, Heart Institute (InCor) at the University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil. His expertise is in interstitial and rare lung diseases, with a hundred articles published. He has served as an editor, including Associate Editor of Frontiers in Medicine and BMC Pulmonary Medicine, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia from 2019 to 2022

Niranjan Jeganathan: Loma Linda University Health System School of Medicine, US

Dr Niranjan Jeganathan is a pulmonologist with a special interest in interstitial lung diseases (ILD). He is the Director of the ILD Center at Loma Linda University (California) which is a Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Care Center. His research interest within ILD is in understanding the epidemiology of ILD including Connective Tissue Diseases-Related ILD. He has been an editor for other research collections related to ILD. In addition, he has reviewed numerous ILD articles for many different journals. 

 Jin Woo Song: University of Ulsan College of Medicine, South Korea

Dr Jin Woo Song is Professor in the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, South Korea. He is currently Director of the ILD Program at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea. His academic interests include the effects of air pollution on clinical outcomes in ILD, metabolic changes in ILD and biomarkers in ILD.

Submission Guidelines

This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 8 April 2024