A 43-year-old member asked:
please explain why is pneumonia not an interstitial lung disease?
2 doctor answers • 2 doctors weighed in
Dr. Nestor Del rosario answered
Addiction Medicine 34 years experience
Tissues involved: Interstitium is that area of the lung in between the blood vessels and the alveoli, more the connective tissue area. Pneumonia is an inflammation causing involvement of all tissues like the interstitial, the blood vessels and even the alveoli hence the whiteness seen or the infiltrate is dense and involves the whole area.
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Dr. James Ferguson answered
Pediatrics 46 years experience
Consider an analogy: Regular pneumonia would fill the rooms in a hotel. The interstitial pneumonia would infect the walls of the rooms. When examined under the microscope the difference is clearly different. The chest x-ray is also different.
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A 24-year-old member asked:
Is pneumonia a form of interstitial lung disease?
3 doctor answers • 8 doctors weighed in
Dr. Robert Wright answered
Pulmonary Critical Care 44 years experience
No: Bacterial pneumonia is not generally considered interstitial lung disease. However, some forms of interstitial lung disease are referred to as iip or idiopathic interstitial pneumonia. These diseases are not pneumonia in the classic sense. They are not thought to be infectious in etiology.
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A 43-year-old member asked:
What makes pneumonia not an interstitial lung disease?
1 doctor answer • 1 doctor weighed in
Dr. Fernando Torres answered
Pulmonology 27 years experience
They are different: A pneumonia is caused by an organism causing destruction of the lung tissue. Interstitial lung disease is inflammation of the lung and usually starts in the "interstitium" but later can involve other parts of the lung. But, one is felt to be an infection, while the other is more"immune" caused.
The picture is of a pneumonia in the left of the picture(all the white area compared to the dark).
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Last updated Oct 30, 2017
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