Chronic Eosinophilic Pneumonia

Chronic
Eosinophilic Pneumonia

  

• E
  Marchand, and the Groupe d”Etudes et de
  Recherche sur les Maladies 
  “Orphelines” Pulmonaries (GERM
  “O”P) (Hopital Cardiovasculaire et
  Pneumologique Louis Pradel, Lyon, France; et al).
  
  Idiopathic Chronic Eosinophilic
  Pneumonia: A Clinical and Follow-up Study of 62
  cases.
  
  Medicine
  77:299-312, 1998.
  
     
  
  Idiopathic
  chronic eosinophilic pneumonia (CEP), a rare
  disorder of unknown causes.
  
      
  
  Of
  62 carefully selected patients with CEP, 46 were
  followed up for more than 1 year.
  All patients had bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL)
  eosinophilia.  Sixty-eight
  percent of the patients had a ventilatory defect,
  which was obstructive in 35% and restrictive in 32%.
  Open lung biopsy was performed in only 6.5%
  of the patients.
  
     
  
  All
  but 1 patient received oral corticosteroid therapy,
  at a mean initial dose of 0.97mg/kg per day of
  prednisone. All
  treated patients had rapid subjective improvement.
  Eighty-two percent were improved within 48
  hours. Within
  1 week of treatment, 49 patients underwent chest
  radiography, which showed disappearance of initial
  opacities in 69.4%. Forty-eight
  relapses occurred in 30 (48%) patients.