Early Detection of Interstitial Lung Diseases: Validation of a New ILD Screening Tool

<bold>Introduction:</bold> An ILD screening tool for primary care can reduce diagnostic delays. We recently reported the results of the development of an ILD screening tool (ATS 2025). Here, we present the results of its validation conducted in a separate cohort. <bold>Methods:</bold> This study recruited 156 adults with respiratory symptoms from 14 respiratory clinics across India. All patients completed the 8-item ILD screening tool (83% sensitivity, 79% specificity, 81% accuracy at the cut-off score ≥ 5) and underwent HRCT as advised by the physician. Screen positives and negatives were compared with HRCT-defined ILDs and non-ILDs. <bold>Results:</bold> Mean age was 55.2 ± 14.9 years; 33.3% and 52.4% were males in HRCT-defined ILD and non-ILD groups, respectively. Compared to HRCT, which is the gold standard for ILD diagnosis, the ILD screening tool showed 59.6% sensitivity, 80.8% specificity, and 73% overall accuracy at a cut-off of ≥5 (Range: 0-15). To improve the sensitivity, patients were classified into low (0-4), medium (5-8), and high-risk (9-15) groups based on ILD screening tool scores. This increased the sensitivity in the high-risk to 83.3% while maintaining a specificity of 80.8% in the low-risk group (Figure 1). <bold>Conclusion:</bold> Our novel ILD screening tool is sensitive, specific, and suitable for primary care to identify high-risk patients for HRCT evaluation. Figure 1: Scoring-Based ILD Diagnosis in the Validation Cohort (n=156) <fig><object-id>erj;66/suppl_69/PA5110/F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><graphic></graphic></fig>