Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Our team is focused on providing comprehensive care for patients with ILD by using a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional approach to care and research. Interstitial lung diseases are complex group of more than 100 rare disorders that are often associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Examples of conditions include idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, rheumatoid arthritis associated ILD and other forms of autoimmune related ILD, and chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Our team has framed our approach to this important patient population by addressing the 4 key areas of clinical care, education of trainees, community outreach, and research. Ultimately, our goal is to perform high quality, innovative clinical and translational research in ILD as this directly impacts care and management of this patient population. We have a research program that spans the spectrum from predictive biomarkers and genetics to risk prediction algorithms for prognosis to improving quality of life for patients and their caregivers. We also participate and recruit patients in investigational clinical trials as many of these diseases have no cure or good therapies. Last, all of the patients that are seen in our ILD clinic are given the opportunity to participate in our ILD research registry and database. This database has a growing number of subjects who have been carefully phenotyped in our weekly ILD multidisciplinary conference with pulmonary, radiology and pathology input, and have corresponding cross-sectional and longitudinal clinical data, physiology, imaging and banked samples. This active and productive research environment helps foster the mentorship of trainees who are interested in ILD research, either as part of their pulmonary fellowship or as part of our Advanced Pulmonary Fellowship in ILD.