Abstract
Bronchoalveolar lavage is a new bronchoscopie technique which permits assessment of changes in the cellular traffic in the alveolar spaces. One hundred and fourteen patients underwent bronchoalveolar lavage at the Mayo Clinic during a 16-month period. Whereas control subjects had a predominance of alveolar macrophages (93 ± 1%) with few lymphocytes (5 ± 1%), 35 subjects with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis had a marked increase in the number of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (17 ± 2%), and 32 subjects with sarcoidosis had a marked increase in the number of lymphocytes (26 ± 2%). Further identification of these lymphocytes by the immunofluorescent detection of cell-surface antigens revealed the lymphocytes, in all 13 cases of sarcoidosis examined, to be from the T-helper subclass. Bronchoalveolar lavage represents an easy method to monitor the “alveolitis” in these disorders, and offers promise as a quantitative means by which to assess disease “activity” as well as the response to therapy.
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