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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jan 6, 2026; 14(1): 116170
Published online Jan 6, 2026. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v14.i1.116170
Published online Jan 6, 2026. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v14.i1.116170
Connecting sugar and fibrosis: Diabetes as a hidden player in rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease
Lucas Casagrande Passoni Lopes, Faculdade de Medicina de Bauru, Universidade de São Paulo, Bauru 17012901, Brazil
Author contributions: Lopes LCP is the only author and is responsible for all manuscript development.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author reports no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Lucas Casagrande Passoni Lopes, Faculdade de Medicina de Bauru, Universidade de São Paulo, 9-75 Doutor Octávio Pinheiro Brisolla Street, Bauru 17012901, Brazil. lucaspassoni@usp.br
Received: November 4, 2025
Revised: December 4, 2025
Accepted: December 24, 2025
Published online: January 6, 2026
Processing time: 62 Days and 13.5 Hours
Revised: December 4, 2025
Accepted: December 24, 2025
Published online: January 6, 2026
Processing time: 62 Days and 13.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic autoimmune disease with significant extra-articular morbidity, including interstitial lung disease. Emerging evidence identifies type 2 diabetes mellitus as a significant, yet poorly recognized, modifier of pulmonary risk in rheumatoid arthritis. In this editorial, we discuss, together with the article by Sutton et al, the mechanistic, epidemiological, and clinical data that support a metabolic-pulmonary-autoimmune axis.