[Liebow's desquamative pneumonia--a separate disease entity or a form of chronic interstitial pneumonia? (author's transl)].

When in 1965 Liebow first described desquamative interstitial pneumonia (DIP) and differentiated it from other types of interstitial pneumonia he believed it to be a separate disease entity. The fact that the observed cases were of a relatively benign nature seemed to confirm this view. However, during the past years there have been reports of cases which took a less benign course; it was also observed that disorders with features similar to DIP could be produced by various exogenous noxae. The question, therefore, arises, whether DIP is, in fact, a separate disease entity or a specific pulmonary reaction to a variety of similarly acting noxae.