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Interstitial lung diseases are a heterogeneous group of disorders that are poorly understood at a molecular level.¹,² The cause is often unknown, and the histologic diagnoses used in adults may represent different disease processes in children.³–⁵ For example, cases of desquamative interstitial pneumonitis reported in infants are often more severe and refractory to treatment than those reported in adults.⁶,⁷ Many of these cases probably represent chronic pneumonitis of infancy.⁸,⁹ The lungs in patients with chronic pneumonitis of infancy are characterized by interstitial thickening with mesenchymal cells, rather than by an inflammatory infiltrate, and an alveolar infiltrate . . .