Evaluación del posible papel de la osteopontina como marcador biológico en la fibrosis pulmonar idiopática

background: idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (ipf) is a chronic pulmonary disease of difficult diagnosis that could be confused with other interstitial lung diseases (ild). in this context, it is important to seek new methods which can be helpful in the diagnosis of this disease. osteopontin (opn) is a multifunctional glycopro-tein that has a stimulating effect over fibroblasts and extracellular matrix accumulation. because it has a possible pro-fibrosing role, we decided to measure its concentration in bronchioalveolar lavage (bal) from patients with ipf and to compare it with other ilds. methods: opn concentration was measured by elisa method in 25 ipf patients, 10 patients with non-specific interstitial pneumonia (nsip), 16 patients with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (hp) and 10 healthy controls. results: opn levels in ipf patients were significantly increased compared with patients with hp and healthy controls (p < 0.0001) as with nsip patients (p< 0.05). this test showed an 80% sensitivity and 75% specificity when the opn concentration logarithm is > 2.0. there was no correlation between opn levels and pulmonary function tests. interestingly, we observed a significant association between opn levels and finger clubbing (or: 6.69; cl: 1.25-10.76; p < 0.05). conclusions: ipf patients showed increased opn levels; this test might be considered as an ancillary tool in the differential diagnosis of ild. additionally, our findings suggest that opn could be implicated in the pathogenesis of clubbing.