-
I have been recently diagnosed with radiation induced pulmonary fibrosis after breast cancer treatment (on HRCT) which is a rare side effect. My pulmonologist was not very surprised as I had an upper GI bleed and was diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus four years ago. I have never had any symptoms of heartburn, but started taking omeprazole then. The pulmonologist thinks that I probably had subclinical ILD caused by silent GERD and the radiation therapy triggered the PF.
He told me that he would expect to find pepsin in my lung tissue if he did a biopsy, but since my treatment (corticosteroids) would not change, there would be no point to doing one. As far as he is concerned, biopsies are useful if the diagnosis is in question and treatment decisions need to be made. He has noticed a significant correlation between GERD and ILD, but nobody has shown a cause/effect relationship yet.
Margaret