ArticleBMJ open respiratory research2021
Fine crackles on chest auscultation in the early diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: a prospective cohort study.
Article in BMJ open respiratory research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- Patient reports of evaluations for interstitial lung disease in patients with connective tissue diseases and rheumatoid arthritis: an international survey.Respiratory research · 2026Article
- Lung Auscultation for Detecting Interstitial Lung Disease in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Systemic Sclerosis: Retrospective Cohort Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: advances, challenges and future directions.The European respiratory journal · 2026Review
- Artificial Intelligence Enabled Lung Sound Auscultation in the Early Diagnosis and Subtyping of Interstitial Lung Disease.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Pulmonary Disease in the Older Adult: A Review of Interstitial Lung Disease.Clinics in geriatric medicine · 2025Review
- Pathophysiological Insights and Clinical Management Strategies for Interstitial Lung Diseases.Biomolecules & therapeutics · 2025Review
- Machine Learning Analysis of Electronic Health Records Identifies Interstitial Lung Disease and Predicts Mortality in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Diagnosis of early idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: current status and future perspective.Respiratory research · 2025Review
- Automated system for diagnosing pulmonary fibrosis using crackle analysis in recorded lung sounds based on iterative envelope mean fractal dimension filter.Physiological measurement · 2025Article
- The radiologist's role in detecting systemic anticancer therapy-related interstitial lung disease: an educational review.Insights into imaging · 2024Review
- Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis-specific Bayesian network integrating extracellular vesicle proteome and clinical information.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A New Shapley-Based Feature Selection Method in a Clinical Decision Support System for the Identification of Lung Diseases.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Revolutionizing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Care with the Open AI Application: ChatGPT.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2023Article
- Assessing feasibility of targeted primary care referrals for patients with clinical suspicion of interstitial lung disease using lung ultrasound: a prospective case finding study. The potential benefits of LUS utilization.Sarcoidosis, vasculitis, and diffuse lung diseases : official journal of WASOG · 2023Article
- Optimizing Screening for Early Disease Detection in Familial Pulmonary Fibrosis (FLORIS): A Prospective Cohort Study Design.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Increased expiratory flows identify early interstitial lung disease.Annals of thoracic medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIdiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an interstitial lung disease (ILD) with a poor prognosis. Early diagnosis and treatment of IPF may increase lifespan and preserve quality of life. Chest CT is the best test to diagnose IPF, but it is expensive and impractical as a screening test. Fine crackles on chest auscultation may be the only best to screen for IPF.
methodsWe prospectively assessed the presence and type of crackles on chest auscultation in all patients referred to the ILD Clinic at the Kingston Health Sciences Center in Ontario, Canada. Clinicians with varying levels of experience recorded the presence of fine crackles, coarse crackles or both independently and unaware of the final diagnosis. We applied multinomial logistic regression to adjust for ILD severity and factors that could affect the identification of crackles.
resultsWe evaluated 290 patients referred to the ILD Clinic. On initial presentation, 93% of patients with IPF and 73% of patients with non-IPF ILD had fine crackles on auscultation. In patients with IPF, fine crackles were more common than cough (86%), dyspnoea (80%), low diffusing capacity (87%), total lung capacity (57%) and forced vital capacity (50%). There was 90% observer agreement in identifying fine crackles at a subsequent visit. In multiple regression analysis, the identification of fine crackles was unaffected by lung function, symptoms, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity or clinician experience (p>0.05).
conclusionsFine crackles on chest auscultation are a sensitive and robust screening tool that can lead to early diagnosis and treatment of patients with IPF.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.