National Jewish Health, Denver (Dr Krefft, Ms Wolff, Ms Zell-Baran, Dr Strand, Dr Gottschall, Dr Meehan, Dr Rose); Veterans Administration Eastern Colorado Health Care System (Dr Krefft); University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (Dr Krefft, Dr Rose); Colorado School of Public Health (Dr Krefft, Ms Zell-Baran, Dr Strand, Dr Rose); University of Colorado (Dr Gottschall, Dr Meehan), Aurora, Colorado.
Address correspondence to: Silpa D. Krefft, MD, MPH, 1400 Jackson Street, G208, Denver, CO 80206 (KrefftS@NJHealth.org).
Funding: This research was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program under Award No. W81XWH-16-2-0018. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense or the Veterans Administration. This work also was supported by NIH/NCATS Colorado CTSA Grant Number UL1 TR002535. Contents are the authors’ sole responsibility and do not necessarily represent official NIH views. Additional funding support was provided through the Sergeant Sullivan Fund at National Jewish Health.
None of the authors have a conflict of interest to declare in relation to this work.
Clinical Significance: Using clear case definitions, our study provides guidance to clinicians on the spectrum of common proximal and distal respiratory diseases affecting symptomatic post-9/11 military personnel following complex inhalational exposures in austere environments, and clarifies the utility of lung function testing in clinical diagnosis of deployment-related distal lung disease.
