Utility of Lung Clearance Index Score as a Noninvasive Marker of Deployment Lung Disease

The healthy control group will comprise volunteers who are at least 18 years of age, have no history of pre-existing lung disease, and report no respiratory illness in the four weeks preceding enrollment.

The symptomatic deployers who have undergone lung biopsy and meet the case definition for deployment-related lung disease. A case of deployment-related lung disease is defined as the presence of unexplained chest symptoms in a deployer who, on a surgical lung biopsy, is found to have bronchiolitis or granulomatous pneumonitis without other known cause.

Inclusion criteria

For the deployer group:

• presence of respiratory symptoms (cough, chest tightness, wheezing, shortness of breath or decreased exercise tolerance) following deployment
• history of deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation New Dawn for greater than or equal to 6 weeks as either military personnel or a civilian contractor
• prior VATS biopsy-proven histologic abnormalities of small airways disease.

For the control group:

• no history of pre-existing lung disease
• no respiratory illness in the four weeks preceding enrollment

Exclusion criteria

For the deployer group:

• If on clinical evaluation they were found to have asthma, vocal cord dysfunction or other explanations for their respiratory symptoms and did not need to undergo surgical lung biopsy for diagnosis.
• unable to provide informed consent
• pregnant subjects

For the control group:

• pre-existing lung disease
• unable to provide informed consent
• pregnant subjects