The clinical assessment of lung involvement in patients with Still’s disease, results from the multicentre international AIDA Network Still’s Disease Registry

Objectives To assess the lung involvement in patients with Still's disease, an inflammatory disease assessing both children and adults. To exploit possible associated factors for parenchymal lung involvement in these patients.Methods A multicentre observational study was arranged assessing consecutive patients with Still's disease characterized by the lung involvement among those included in the AIDA (AutoInflammatory Disease Alliance) Network Still's Disease Registry. Still's disease-lung involvement was defined by the presence of pleuritis, parenchymal features, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and/or pulmonary arterial hypertension.Results In total, 90 patients with Still's disease and lung involvement were assessed (mean age 36.3 +/- 17.8 years, 35.6% male sex). Among them, 13.3% of patients were paediatrics. These patients with lung involvement mainly showed pleuritis in 72.2% of cases, parenchymal features in 34.4%, ARDS in 9.5% and pulmonary arterial hypertension in 2.3%. After that we focused on patients characterised by parenchymal lung involvement, which is an emergent issue of clinical concern. These patients with parenchymal lung disease were significantly characterized by sore throat, pericarditis and higher values of systemic score than others. Finally, the administration of both IL-1 or IL-6 inhibitors was not associated with the presence of parenchymal lung involvement.Conclusion The clinical characteristics of patients with Still's disease and lung involvement were described in the AIDA network. We also provided a clinical profile of patients with parenchymal lung involvement considering its prognostic relevance. Although providing a clinical landscape of these patients, further studies are needed to fully clarify this issue.