Diffuse parenchymal diseases of the lungs

Diffuse parenchymal lung diseases require comprehensive knowledge and close interdisciplinary collaboration between pulmonologists, radiologists, pathologists, and often rheumatologists or specialists from other related fields of human medicine.
The first Slovak monograph on diffuse parenchymal lung diseases is a synthesis of the most current scientific knowledge and over 30 years of clinical experience from authors who systematically address this issue in their daily outpatient and inpatient healthcare practice. It is intended primarily for the postgraduate education of doctors in the field of pulmonology and phthisiology during their specialist training, but also for related fields of internal medicine.
The authors have strived for a pragmatic clinical approach. Within a standardised structure—from definition, epidemiology, and aetiopathogenesis, through to clinical presentation, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis—they provide information on the nosological units and syndromes that belong to this heterogeneous and broad spectrum. In four main chapters, they have compiled knowledge on 44 nosological units and syndromes.
In doing so, they have followed the currently valid international classification of these diseases. They begin with idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, as their clinical, radiographic, and histopathological manifestations often serve as models that appear in other syndromes and diseases. They continue with granulomatous lung diseases, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, lung involvement in diffuse connective tissue diseases and vasculitides, manifestations of drug toxicity, radiation damage, and pneumoconiosis from inorganic dusts, concluding with rare diseases of the pulmonary interstitium and eosinophilic lung diseases.
They have focused mainly on clinically significant knowledge, which gives the monograph the potential to become a daily aid for pulmonologists, internists, rheumatologists, and perhaps also radiologists, pathologists, and general practitioners.