Diffuse interstitial lung disease in rheumatoid arthritis. Views on immunological and HLA findings

Immunological parameters including HLA typing were studied in 32 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) associated diffuse interstitial lung disease (DILD) and in 32 age- and sex-matched RA control patients. The male RA patient group with DILD also included patients with other intrathoracic manifestations and had a higher prevalence of HLA-B8 and Dw3 than did healthy controls, thus agreeing with our earlier results that RA patients with this antigen combination are prone to multiple intrathoracic complications. Patients with DILD had higher titres of rheumatoid factor (RF) and lower complement (C4) levels than matched RA controls. The RF titre was in inverse correlation with C3 and C4 levels, suggesting that RF immune complexes may also promote rheumatoid lung disease via activation of the classical pathway of complement.