In this context, it has been described that VCAM-1 is induced by both inflammatory cytokines and hypoxia (Peter et al., 1999; Dessein et al., 2005; Navarro-Hernández et al., 2009; Cook-Mills et al., 2011; Murdaca et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2015; Kong et al., 2018; McGroder et al., 2019), which may explain the increase of this protein observed in our RA-ILD+ patients. This evidence concerns the gene VCAM1 and interstitial lung disease.