Over half the world's population, most from developing countries, use solid fuel for domestic purposes and are exposed to very high concentrations of harmful air pollutants with potential health effects such as respiratory problems, cardiovascular, infant mortality and ocular problems. The evidence also suggests that, although the total percentage of people using solid fuel is coming down, the absolute number is currently increasing.

Exposure to smoke from solid fuel burning increases the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and lung cancer in adults and acute lower respiratory tract infection/pneumonia in children. Despite heterogeneity among different studies the association between COPD and exposure to smoke produced by burning different types of solid fuel is consistent. However, there is strong evidence that while coal burning is a risk for lung cancer, exposure to other biomass fuel smoke is less so.

There is some evidence that reduction of smoke exposure using improve cook stoves reduces the risk of COPD and possibly acute lower respiratory infection in children so approaches to reduce biomass smoke exposure are likely to result in reductions in the global burden of respiratory disease.

In this article, we review the utility of the most common lung function tests (spirometry, reversibility test, peak expiratory flow, lung volumes, maximal respiratory pressure, carbon monoxide transference, arterial blood gas, 6-minute walk test and desaturation with exercise and ergospirometry) related to the most frequent pathologies (dyspnea of undetermined origin, chronic cough, asthma, COPD, neuromuscular diseases, interstitial diseases, pulmonary vascular diseases, pre-operative evaluation and disability evaluation).

Our analysis has been developed from the perspective of decision-making, clinical interpretation or aspects that the physician should take into account with their use. Consequently, the paper does not deal with aspects of quality, technique or equipment, with the exception of when regarding costs as we believe that this is an important element in the decision-making process. The document is extensively supported by references from the literature.

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) encompass a wide range of diffuse pulmonary disorders, characterized by a variable degree of inflammatory and fibrotic changes of the alveolar wall and eventually the distal bronchiolar airspaces. ILDs may occur in isolation or in association with systemic diseases.

The clinical evaluation of a patient with ILD includes a thorough medical history and detailed physical examination; obligatory diagnostic testing includes laboratory testing, chest radiography, and high-resolution computed tomography and comprehensive pulmonary function testing and blood gas analysis.

To optimize the diagnostic yield, a dynamic interaction between the pulmonologist, radiologist, and pathologist is mandatory.

Articles in the past have described the radiological appearances of different interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) in varying levels of detail. However, these articles have generally been written for radiologists with a background in basic chest computed tomography (CT) interpretation.

This article summarizes a basic approach for diagnosing ILDs on high-resolution CT (HRCT) for the nonradiologist clinician and discusses the most common HRCT features of common ILDs.