Interstitial Lung Diseases

Diagnosis

At Mayo Clinic, diagnosing ILD starts with a complete physical examination as well as a careful and thorough medical history that includes information about environmental and occupational exposures to dusts, gases, chemicals, pets, air conditioners, and humidifiers. Other diagnostic tools include:

• Chest X-ray
• Pulmonary function tests — Mayo Clinic's laboratory for testing lung function is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind.
• Arterial blood gas — a test that measures the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood.
• Blood tests
• CT Scan
• Exercise testing
• Bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage to check for inflammatory cells in the lungs. (A tube is inserted through the nose into the trachea to see the airways. Next, a small amount of sterile saline is placed in one area of the lung and then withdrawn. This fluid contains cells that will be analyzed under a microscope.)
• Surgical lung biopsy, a surgical procedure that helps Mayo Clinic doctors diagnose and determine the stage of the disease process. The procedure allows several different samples of lung tissue to be analyzed. Sometimes, tiny pieces of lung tissue obtained with a bronchoscopy (a transbronchial biopsy) may be attempted first to rule out known causes of ILD.