RESULTS
The mean age of the patients was 54.4 ± 9.2. The majority of the patients were women (94.3%). Dyspnea (28.6 %), effort dyspnea (22.9 %) and dry cough (17.1 %) were the most common clinical complaints of patients at the time of admission.
Median diagnosis time was 74 months. When the medical treatments of the patients were examined, Hydroxychloroquine (88.6%) and Corticosteroid (68.6%) were the most common. Most of the patients (79%) using steroid were using prednisolone less than 10 mg or its equivalent. When the comorbid lung diseases were investigated, 5 patients had asthma and 4 patients had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (11.4%). The general characteristics of the patients are shown in Table 1.
When the HRCT findings were evaluated, 28 (80%) patients had CT findings, while 7 (20%) patients had no CT findings. Distribution of CT findings; Peribronchial thickening in 17 (48.6%) patients, ground glass in 10 (28.6%) patients, prominence in interstitial scars in 8 (22.9%) patients, bronchiectasis in 7 (20%) patients, reticular appearance in 6 (17.1%) patients, 5 (14.3%) reticulonodular infiltration in the patient, consolidation in 4 (11.4%) patients, solitary nodule in 2 (5.7%), mosaic perfusion in 2 (5.7%), honeycomb appearance in 2 (5.7%) patients, parenchymal band appearance in 1 (2.9%) patient.
No significant difference was found when the data of PFT were evaluated in patients with and without CT findings. Although DLCO values were not statistically significant, lower values were found in patients with CT findings (Table 2).
No statistically significant difference was observed between patients with and without CT findings when we grouped the PFT data as normal, obstructive, restrictive and small airway obstruction (p = 0.471, Table 3).
The relationship between the patients’ age and duration of illness with PFT parameters is shown in Table 4. According to this no statistically significant difference was found between the duration of illness and PFT results. On the other hand, the disparity between age and FEV1 (p <0.001), FEV1% (p = 0.011), FVC (p <0.001), FEV1 / FVC (p = 0.005) and FEF25-75 (p = 0.046) was statistically significant. In elderly patients at 6MWT, the walking distance was statistically significantly shorter (p = 0.029).
When the CT outcomes were analyzed by dividing the duration of the disease into the first 3 years and after; no significant difference was found (Table 5).