A clinico-pathological study of 14 open lung biopsy cases of clinically suspected diffuse panbronchiolitis

To elucidate the relationship between clinical and histopathological findings in diffuse panbronchiolitis (DPB), we reviewed 14 open lung biopsy cases clinically suspected of having DPB. According to the histopathological criteria for "PB unit lesion" proposed by Kitaichi in 1988, 11 cases were diagnosed as having DPB; 3 cases were excluded by the criteria. The pathological diagnosis was not concordant with the evaluation according to the clinical diagnostic criteria for DPB previously proposed by Homma et al. in 1983. The present results indicate 1) the necessity to reexamine the pathological criteria for DPB, especially in open lung biopsy cases, and 2) the difficult differential diagnosis between DPB cases and non-DPB ones by current clinical diagnostic criteria.