Idiopathic interstitial pneumonia overview

The idiopathic interstitial pneumonias are a broad range of interstitial lung diseases of unknown etiology characterized by expansion of the interstitial compartment initially by inflammatory cells ending by fibrosis due to fibroblasts proliferation and subsequent collagen deposition. It generally manifests non specifically as breathlessness and/or cough and characterized by bilateral abnormal opacities of various types on conventional chest radiographs or computed tomographic (CT) scans.