A perspective view on widespread pulmonary fibrosis.
A perspective view on widespread pulmonary fibrosis.
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对广泛性肺纤维化的透视。
DOI:
10.1136/bmj.2.5915.371
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发表时间:
1974
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
M. Turner‐Warwick
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
M. Turner‐Warwick
Widespread fibrotic scarring occurs as a final stage of healing in many different types of tissue damaging injury to the lung. In some cases the acute stage may be short-lived; in others the active process may continue alongside the fibrosing response over prolonged periods. In either event the resulting fibrosis progressively impairs lung performance and often leads to premature death. At first sight it may, therefore, appear to be a somewhat nihilistic exercise to focus upon the scar tissue stage of disease when control and treatment of the earlier processes are of so much greater importance. The topic is justified on simple clinical grounds. Patients are seen regularly presenting with far advanced widespread fibrosis of the lungs with gross venti latory and circulatory impairment, in whom at this stage no form of treatment can alter their relentless downhill progress. The lack of appreciation of the hazards of allowing the more acute widespread changes to continue is understandable be cause, owing to the great ventilatory reserves of the lung, symp toms may be absent or relatively slight. Even when the potential dangers are recognized, the best methods to monitor progress or regression of disease in the aknost asymptomatic patient are not yet fully known. Nevertheless, even with this limitation, all too often little or no systematic attempt is made to supervise these patients, even with the techniques which are readily available. Serial assessment of lung performance at rest is in any case a relatively crude yardstick, and is often measured only at irregular intervals; standardized exercise tests are rarely used, and all too often too much reliance is placed on the chest radiograph, which also reflects only relatively gross changes. In any case chest x-ray films are but shadows, and the extent to which they can indicate the presence of fibrosis as distinct from more acute reversible inflammatory lesions is, with a few notable exceptions, limited. This lecture will emphasize the great variety of entirely distinct processes which may initiate widespread fibrosis in the lungs, will examine the intriguing problem of its selective distribution-favouring characteristically the upper lobes in somediseases and the lower lobes in others-and will consider the known factors which influence the rate of progression of these lesions.