The combination of pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema is a syndrome described in the last years, which has its own characteristics and it is not only the casual association between the two entities. The idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is the most common type of pulmonary fibrosis. However other interstitial lung diseases could be part of this syndrome. Among them is the connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease. We report a case of this syndrome associated with rheumatoid arthritis. It has the peculiarity that the connective disease became overt several years after the presentation of combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema syndrome, which is infrequently reported in the literature.
Keywords: emphysema; pulmonary fibrosis; rheumatoid arthritis.