Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) are a group of disorders in which the lungs progressively get stiffer due to defective tissue repair mechanisms. This leads to decreased oxygen uptake into the blood and breathing difficulties, which can escalate into a series of life-threatening complications including respiratory or heart failure. Within the older Canadian population, ILDs have a comparable incidence (39.5-156.4 per 100,000) to breast and prostate cancer (68.1 and 110.4 per 100,000). Because there are several subtypes of ILDs, one of the major hurdles in effectively treating ILDs is accurately classifying the ILD subtype; many of the subtypes look similar on standard medical tests, but require vastly different treatments. As a result, establishing an accurate diagnosis can take several years and often requires invasive diagnostic tests such as a lung biopsy that have potential for significant complications. Importantly, misdiagnosis of ILD subtypes and inappropriate treatment can worsen patient outcomes. To date, there is no diagnostic tool that can accurately identify a single ILD subtype, which is a problem given the frequently inconclusive findings from traditional tests. Our project aims to be the first to develop a simple blood test that can provide clarity in the diagnosis of ILD cases.