Development of a Knowledge-sharing Website for Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis Exposures

Abstract

Background: Identification of potential inciting antigens known to be associated with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) is integral to achieving a confident diagnosis, its management, and prognostication. A barrier to achieving diagnostic confidence is that evidence for exposure assessment is not presented in an easily accessible or useful format.

Objective: To develop a freely available comprehensive living repository of contemporaneous exposures associated with HP.

Methods: Electronic searches were performed through Medline, Embase, and Web of Science from January 1, 2002, to December 31, 2019, using the following broad MeSH headings: ([allerg* or hypersensitiv*], and adj [alveol* or pneumo*]).mp. Articles were included if they described adults or children with a diagnosis of HP (as defined by authors) and a description of the causative exposure. Website development used a structured query language database and was powered by WordPress.

Results: HPLung.com is a freely available online searchable repository that lists all exposures and antigens associated with HP and links to their parent studies. Eighty-five unique exposures from 447 citations have been included thus far. The website continues to be updated iteratively. Since its launch in 2019, HPLung.com has been visited over 4,500 times by users from 75 different countries.

Conclusion: HPLung.com is a novel knowledge-sharing tool that addresses barriers of accessibility, contemporaneity, efficient evidence synthesis, and making the best use of technological platforms to improve the exposure assessment of those suspected of HP.

Keywords: allergic extrinsic alveolitis; farmer’s lung; interstitial lung disease; medical education.

Figure 1.

Prisma flow diagram. HP = hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

Figure 2.

Screenshot from HPLung.com.