Guidelines, lists and templates should be tools of the trade in the multidisciplinary effort to improve the accuracy and consistency of diagnosis in interstitial lung diseases (ILD).
Delegates attending the Respiratory Insights Forum in Melbourne were told that a systematic approach was critical to achieving diagnostic agreement in such a complex set of disorders.
Useful resources to standardise the presentation of clinical data, guide the sequence of discussion at multidisciplinary meetings (MDM) and record outcomes are freely available online in the Lung Foundation Australia’s ILD MDM Toolkit.
Supporting the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and Lung Foundation Australia’s Position Statement on the MDM1, the resources include lists of common and agreed diagnostic terms and a template for documenting relevant clinical trials.
Associate Professor Ian Glaspole, head of the ILD clinic at the Alfred Hospital, said MDM outcomes relied on good quality CT scanning, serology and discussion.
“Case presentations must be systematic and detailed to enhance discussion. A scripted approach to discussion is helpful.”
He said wherever possible, the use of consensus guidelines would help improve agreement on a diagnosis.
“Where there aren’t guidelines, use expert opinion articles.”
Associate Professor Glaspole told the limbic consensus guidelines were difficult to develop for some conditions because they were so rare and it was hard to determine their hallmark features.
“But we are getting there because there are working papers and white papers and other forms of expert opinion that are the stepping stones to those consensus guidelines.”
He said a broad group of experts was important for the MDM process.