Clinical utility of bronchoalveolar lavage in the assessment of interstitial lung disease.
Bronchoalveolar lavage is a new bronchoscopic technique which permits assessment of changes in the cellular traffic in the alveolar spaces. One hundred and fourteen patients underwent bronchoalveolar lavage at the Mayo Clinic during a 16-month period. Whereas control subjects had a predominance of alveolar macrophages (93 +/- 1%) with few lymphocytes (5 +/- 1%), 35 subjects with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis had a marked increase in the number of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (17 +/- 2%), and 32 subjects with sarcoidosis had a marked increase in the number of lymphocytes (26 +/- 2%). Further identification of these lymphocytes by the immunofluorescent detection of cell-surface antigens revealed the lymphocytes, in all 13 cases of sarcoidosis examined, to be from the T-helper subclass. Bronchoalveolar lavage represents an easy method to monitor the "alveolitis" in these disorders, and offers promise as a quantitative means by which to assess disease "activity" as well as the response to therapy.
D001706:Biopsy; D001980:Bronchi; D020680:Bronchoscopes; D001999:Bronchoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D003581:Cytodiagnosis / Q000379:methods; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology; D006801:Humans; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis; D011650:Pulmonary Alveoli; D011658:Pulmonary Fibrosis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012507:Sarcoidosis / Q000175:diagnosis; D007507:Therapeutic Irrigation / Q000379:methods