Medical history (history of illness) represents an important component in the diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis.
Family history
- What is the general health of your family members?
- Are there any diseases in your family that are common?
Social history
- What is your profession?
- Are you exposed to harmful working substances in your profession?
Current medical history/systemic medical history (somatic and psychological complaints).
- Have you noticed increasing shortness of breath on exertion?
- At what level of exertion does the shortness of breath currently begin? Indication of the distance, stairs, etc.?
- Have you noticed an increased respiratory rate?
- Do you have a cough?
- Is the cough dry? (Form of cough in which no or very little mucus (sputum) is coughed up).
- Is the cough productive? If so, what does the sputum look like?
- Have you noticed any bluish discoloration of the skin, lips, fingers, etc.?
- Have you noticed changes in the fingers and / or nails?
Vegetative anamnesis including nutritional anamnesis.
- Please tell us your body weight (in kg) and height (in cm).
- Do you smoke? If so, how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes per day?
- Do you use drugs? If yes, what drugs (cocaine) and how often per day or per week?
Self history incl. drug history.
- Pre-existing conditions (pulmonary diseases; autoimmune diseases).
- Surgeries
- Radiotherapy
- Vaccination status
- Allergies
Drug history (including drug-induced interstitial lung disease (DILD)).
- Amiodarone, flecainide (antiarrhythmic drugs).
- Antibiotics – nitrofurantoin, daptomycin.
- Anticonvulsants, unspecified (e.g., phenytoin).
- Calcium channel blockers-bepridil (amine calcium channel blocker; incidence of DILD: 6.3%).
- Checkpoint inhibitors – ipilimumab (incidence of DILD: 5.44%), nivolumab (incidence of DILD: 11.7%).
- Gold
- Granulocyte colony-stimulating factors
- Interferons
- Cancer immunotherapy – imatinib (protein kinase inhibitor), rituximab.
- L-tryptophan
- Monoclonal antibodies – erlotinib, cetuximab, gefitinib, panitumumab.
- MTOR inhibitors – everolimus, temsirolimus and sirolimus.
- Rheumatoid drugs – leflunomide, methotrexate (incidence of DILD: 0.06-15%), TNF inhibitors.
- Oxygen
- Cytostatics
- Bleomycin (incidence of a DILD: 6.8-15%).
- Busulfan
- Gemcitabine (incidence of a DILD: 1.1-3.9%).
- Irinotecan (cytostatic drug from the topoisomerase inhibitor group).
- Methotrexate (MTX) [very rarely.]
- Pemetrexed
Environmental history
- Herbicides (weed killers) such as paraquat.
- Inhalation of noxious agents such as tobacco smoke, gases, vapors, aerosols, hairspray, wood dusts, metal dusts (workers in metal smelters), stone dusts (siliceous silica/workers in quarries as well as sandblasters; fibrous silicate minerals: asbestos), and plant and animal particles
