Senile interstitial pneumonia

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) was a term first used at the 18th Aspen Lung Conference in 1975. Ten years later (1985), the 28th Aspen Lung Conference again discussed ILD. Although great progress has been made in the research of ILD over the past decade or so, there are still different understandings of its concept and classification, especially regarding the classification of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (also known as idiopathic interstitial pneumonia or idiopathic fibrosing alveolitis) within ILD, for which no consensus has been reached. ILD is a group of diseases with the alveolar wall as the main site of pathology. ILD is a general term for a clinical-pathological entity composed of different types of diseases characterized by diffuse parenchymal lung disease, alveolitis, and interstitial fibrosis as the basic pathological changes, and with clinical manifestations of exertional dyspnea, diffuse shadows on chest X-ray, restrictive ventilatory impairment, decreased diffusing capacity (DLCO), and hypoxemia. ILD can have an acute, subacute, or chronic course. The acute phase is mainly dominated by injury or inflammatory lesions, while the chronic phase is mainly dominated by fibrotic lesions.