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Researcher determines tests for rare lung disease

Respiratory Care Weekly, December 13, 2006

Lymphangioleimyomatosis (LAM), a rare hormone disorder that destroys a woman's lungs during her childbearing years, might affect some 250,000 women in the United States. However, two typical cancer tests may help doctors discover LAM sooner, according to research funded by National Institutes of Health.

"The key to combating this disease is to educate physicians to know how to diagnose LAM and treat it in its earliest stages before the damage to the lung is done and a transplant is needed," says Vera Krymskaya, PhD, research associate professor of medicine in the pulmonary, allergy, and critical care division at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "A biopsy and a high resolution CT scan, not just an x-ray, are needed to detect LAM."

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