Review

Focusing on diffuse (interstitial) lung disease: a rapidly evolving field

Roland M du Bois

Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK

author email corresponding author email

Respiratory Research 2002, 3:16doi:10.1186/rr165

Published:	19 February 2002

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

The diffuse (interstitial) lung diseases have attracted an unprecedented level of interest over the past 5 years. Statements from the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society committees on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), sarcoidosis and the idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, and from the British Thoracic Society on diffuse parenchymal lung diseases [1-3] have defined the phenotype of the idiopathic interstitial pneumonias more tightly than was previously the case. Much of the credit for this lies in the exploitation of high-resolution computed tomography to provide a three-dimensional anatomical display, with great precision, of the patterns of abnormality that occur in diffuse lung diseases [4]. Such precision has reinvigorated a molecular scientific approach, including molecular genetics, to gain an understanding of disease causation and progression.