Introduction:

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) diagnosis requires a mukidisciplinary approach and, in some cases, lung biopsy.

Objective:

To describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, as well as the radiological and histological findings, of patients with ILD who required lung biopsy after a mukidisciplinary board (pneumology, radiology, and pathology) of a reference center for respiratory diseases in Bucaramanga, Colombia, failed to reach the ILD diagnosis.

Materials and methods:

Cross-sectional study. The medical records of 56 patients treated at the Instituto Neumológico del Oriente who underwent lung biopsy between 2015 and 2019 were reviewed. Measures of central tendency and dispersion were calculated for demographic and clinical variables, respectively, to characterize them. A bivariate analysis was performed using Fisher's exact test to determine whether there were differences in the distribution of the sociodemographic and clinical variables according to the radiological patterns and the final histological diagnosis.

Results:

Participants' median age was 67 years (IQR: 59-72) and 55.35% were men. 43 patients had a radiological pattern inconsistent with usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP); 4 had a pattern consistent with possible UIP; and 9 had a pattern consistent with UIP. The most common histologic diagnoses were hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) (32.14%), nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) (17.86%), and UIP (19.64%).

Conclusion:

In the study population, the primary reason for performing a lung biopsy was the presence of a radiologic pattern inconsistent with UIP, with HP being the predominant histopathological diagnosis. This is the first study to characterize patients with ILD who underwent lung biopsy in eastern Colombia, making a significant contribution to our understanding of the disease's epidemiology in the country.

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