Pulmonary Manifestations of Systemic Diseases

¹ The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas.

A number of non-infectious systemic diseases frequently include pulmonary lesions as a part of the picture. Among these, scleroderma presents the most characteristic and widely recognized findings, and rheumatoid arthritis the least frequently seen. Other diseases in this group with pulmonary manifestations include lupus erythematosus, rheumatic fever, periarteritis nodosa, and erythema nodosum. No pulmonary involvement is reported in dermatomyositis. Although the pulmonary lesions in these diseases are not sufficiently characteristic to lead to a diagnosis, they may give rise to suspicion; also, there may be confusion with other processes, such as tuberculosis and carcinoma.