Editorial

Rheumatoid arthritis and interstitial lung disease A dangerous liaison This editorial refers to ‘Interstitial lung disease has a poor prognosis in rheumatoid arthritis: results from an inception cohort’, by Gouri Koduri et al., doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keq035, on page 1483. Although RA is defined as a symmetrical inflammatory arthropathy, a wide variety of extra-articular manifesta-tions are seen in patients with RA. The pleuropulmonary manifestations of RA encompass airway diseases (e.g. bronchiolitis obliterans), pleural diseases (e.g. pleuritis with or without effusion) and parenchymal pulmonary dis-eases [1, 2]. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is associated with RA (RA-ILD), but the prevalence, incidence and nat-ural history are not well defined. The prevalence of ILD i