ABSTRACT

Over the past 15 years there has been a palpable shift in the use of various agents

in the treatment of diffuse interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). The original treat-

ments focused on corticosteroids (CSs). This was because of the remarkable

improvement seen in specific ILDs, such as sarcoidosis (1). For the idiopathic

ILDs, a landmark paper by Carrington and colleagues suggested that an open

lung biopsy could predict CS responsiveness [for the desquamative interstitial

pneumonitis (DIP) pattern] versus poor CS response [for the usual interstitial

pneumonitis (UIP) pattern] (2).