[Allergic lung diseases other than asthma].

It is implicated that allergic reactions are involved in a variety of lung diseases except for bronchial asthma. These include hypersensitivity pneumonia (HP) induced by type III and IV hypersensitivity reactions to molds and other allergens, and eosinophilic pneumonia caused by known as well as unknown etiology. In Japan, summer type-hypersensitivity pneumonia is the most common disease, consisting approximately 70% of the HP cases. Eosinophilic pneumonia, originally reported as Löffler syndrome, has once been called pulmonary infiltration with eosinophilia or pulmonary eosinophilia. It is now recommended that acute and chronic eosinophilic pneumonia should first be diagnosed upon clinical and laboratory findings including bronchoscopic approaches. Then, causative agents such as drugs, allergens, parasites and fungi should be searched for further differentiated diagnosis. Corticosteroid treatment usually show marked beneficial effects with good prognosis, but in more chronically progressed cases, the outcome might be poor.