特発性間質性肺炎の病態に関する研究　第1編　臨床集計による特発性間質性肺炎の検討

Clinical features, laboratory findings including hematological and biochemical exmination, pulmanary function test and chest x-ray findings of patients with idiopathic interstital pneumonia (IIP) were analyzed to determine the response to steroid therapy. Sixty three patients with IIP were analyzed in comparison with 43 patietns of interstitial pneumonia due to various diseases such as collagen disease, tuberculosis and chronic obstructive lung disease. Almost half of the patients with IIP were treated with steroids and improvement of interstitial pneumonia was shown only in the patients given steroid therapy. The improvement with steroid therapy was shown to the 50% in acute form of IIP, 32.1% in chronic form of IIP and 36.8% in total. Furthermore, the response of steroid therapy was better in patients with a relatively high oxygen level and high vital capacity and with no honeycombing on the chest X-ray film. These findings indicate the therapeutic effectivesess of steroid therapy in some patients and it should be started in the early stage of the clinical of IIP to obtain a good response rate.