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UT Southwestern Medical Center brings together skilled specialists from several disciplines to provide high-quality care for people who have interstitial lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis. Our team-based approach to care offers patients the expertise and advanced treatment options they need to relieve symptoms and improve their quality of life.
Interstitial lung disease, or ILD, is a group of chronic, noncancerous, and noninfectious lung disorders in which lung tissue develops inflammation and becomes damaged. These problems can result in scarring, called pulmonary fibrosis (PF), which affects the ability to breathe and get enough oxygen.
For more than a decade, the Interstitial Lung Disease Program at UT Southwestern has provided comprehensive evaluations and treatment for all ILDs. Our lung specialists offer a team-based, multidisciplinary approach to ILD diagnosis and treatment.
We work to provide state-of-the-art, comprehensive care to improve our patients’ quality of life, to educate our patients and their caregivers, and to conduct research to understand the causes of ILD and develop improved therapeutics.
Almost 200 types of pulmonary fibrosis exist, and 95 percent of them fall into one of the following categories:
The inflammation and scarring that occur with an ILD can lead to symptoms such as:
Our team, which includes pulmonologists, an ILD-trained nurse practitioner, a thoracic radiologist, and a pulmonary pathologist, is skilled at evaluating and diagnosing PF. We begin with a thorough evaluation that includes a:
To help confirm a diagnosis, our ILD specialists might recommend one or more of these tests:
The care team works to develop an individualized treatment plan based on each patient’s overall health, specific symptoms, and other health conditions. Treatment plans can include one or more options, such as:
Medications to treat ILD and its symptoms include:
Our nonsurgical therapies include oxygen therapy, which can ease breathing, reduce the risk of complications from low blood oxygen levels, and prevent high blood pressure in the lungs (pulmonary hypertension).
At UT Southwestern, we also offer pulmonary rehabilitation, a long-term, outpatient program with specialized therapists. Pulmonary rehab can improve lung function and overall health, and we always recommend it after a lung transplant. Our services include:
For people with advanced PF and severe lung damage, a single or double lung transplant can improve the ability to breathe and exercise. Over a recent 30-month period, the lung transplant program at UT Southwestern had the highest survival rate in the nation for one-year post-transplant patients. Since our lung transplant program began in 1990, it has consistently ranked among the top 10 in the United States.
The UT Southwestern Interstitial Lung Disease Program is proud to be a designated site of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) Care Center Network (CCN). We are one of two designated sites in North Texas and one of just 60 nationwide. This designation ensures that the UTSW ILD program has met the PFF’s rigorous standards.
The goal of the network is to improve patients’ quality of life. Receiving care at a PFF CCN site assures patients that their care is in the capable hands of an experienced multidisciplinary team with:
As a designated site, UT Southwestern participates in the PFF Patient Registry. The Registry’s goals are to define and refine best practices, improve patients’ quality of life, and advance research in the field. The Registry will become the largest collection of data in the field, and we are excited by the many opportunities that will provide to improve ILD treatment.
As one of the leading centers in the world for the study of the underlying genetic causes of pulmonary fibrosis, we are conducting several research studies, such as:
We often ask patients about their interest in participating in these research studies and a multicenter patient registry. See all available clinical trials for pulmonary fibrosis and other lung diseases.
Search for opportunities to participate in a lung disease or asthma research study.
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