The pathologist would look at whole bunches of fields of the biopsy in order to feel comfortable with this diagnosis. If your pathologist will diagnose idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis based on these transbronchial lung biopsies, I d get another opinion because ours won t. Because if they ve Now there are some pulmonologists who believe that since it can give us a diagnosis of some things and it s easier and it s an outpatient procedure that we should do that first. In selected patients, I will skip this test and go right to VATS if I really think that s where the money is going to be. That s where we re going to get a diagnosis.
Bronchoalveolar lavage can be helpful.
It can evaluate the alveolitis, the types of inflammatory cells that are there that can sometimes be predictive.