Lung disease
Definition
Lung disease is any disease or disorder where lung function is impaired. There are three major physiologic categories of lung diseases:
1. Obstructive lung disease - a decrease in the exhaled air flow caused by a narrowing or blockage of the airways, such as with asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.
2. Restrictive lung disease - a decrease in the total volume of air that the lungs are able to hold. Often, this is due to a decrease in the elasticity of the lungs themselves or caused by a problem related to the expansion of the chest wall during inhalation.
3. A defect in the ability of the lung’s air sac tissue to move oxygen into a person’s blood.
Most lung diseases actually involve a combination of these categories, such as emphysema, which involves both airflow obstruction and oxygenation problems.
Major lung diseases include:
- Asthma
- BOOP
- chronic bronchitis
- COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
- emphysema
- interstitial lung disease
- pulmonary fibrosis
- sarcoidosis
Other lung diseases include:
- asbestosis
- aspergilloma
- aspergillosis
- aspergillosis - acute invasive
- atelectasis
- eosinophilic pneumonia
- lung cancer
- metastatic lung cancer
- necrotizing pneumonia
- pleural effusion
- pneumoconiosis
- pneumocystosis
- pneumonia
- pneumonia in immunodeficient patient
- pneumothorax
- pulmonary actinomycosis
- pulmonary alveolar proteinosis
- pulmonary anthrax
- pulmonary Arteriovenous malformation
- pulmonary edema
- pulmonary embolus
- Pulmonary histiocytosis X (eosinophilic granuloma)
- pulmonary hypertension
- pulmonary nocardiosis
- pulmonary tuberculosis
- Pulmonary veno-occlusive disease
- rheumatoid lung disease
This list is not complete. There are other lung diseases and disorders.
by Levon Ter-Markosyan, D.M.D.
Medical Encyclopedia
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