Abstract
Clinical features, laboratory findings including hematological and biochemical examination, pulmonary 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 patients 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 be 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 course of IIP to obtain a good response rate.
