Respiratory bronchiolitis

Respiratory bronchiolitis is a lung disease associated with tobacco smoking.

[1] When manifesting significant clinical symptoms it is referred to as respiratory bronchiolitis interstitial lung disease (RB-ILD).

[1] Diagnosis of respiratory bronchiolitis requires a correlation of clinical, radiologic and pathologic findings:[1] Respiratory bronchiolitis interstitial lung disease is respiratory bronchiolitis that manifests as a clinically significant interstitial lung disease.

[4] Also, this disease is predominantly found in the upper lobe with centrilobar ground glass nodules.

The appearance is similar to desquamative interstitial pneumonia, and some have suggested that the two conditions are caused by the same processes.

Histopathology of respiratory bronchiolitis: Smoker's macrophages (arrow); mild interstitial lymphocytic infiltrate and mild fibrosis (arrowhead) [ 2 ]
Histopathology of smoker's macrophages with anthracotic stippling, indicating the presence of both respiratory bronchiolitis and anthracosis .