Emphysema--a disease of small airways or lung parenchyma?
Published Oct 27, 2011 · W. Mitzner
The New England journal of medicine
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Abstract
In 1984, the Division of Lung Diseases at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute funded a workshop that led to what is still the basis for most definitions of emphysema: “a condition of the lung characterized by abnormal, permanent enlargement of airspaces distal to the terminal bronchiole, accompanied by the destruction of their walls, and without obvious fibrosis.”1 In this issue of the Journal, McDonough et al.2 report findings that seem to challenge this definition — namely, the extensive obliteration of terminal bronchioles in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who have emphysema. Indeed, when most people hear . . .