TY - JOUR T1 - The perpetual enigma of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid lymphocytosis in chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis: is it of diagnostic value? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.01534-2020 VL - 56 IS - 2 SP - 2001534 AU - Francesco Bonella AU - Ulrich Costabel Y1 - 2020/08/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/56/2/2001534.abstract N2 - What did ILD guidelines of the past two decades tell us? In the American Thoracic Society (ATS)/European Respiratory Society (ERS) statement on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) of 2000 [2], BAL was considered one of the requirements for the exclusion of other diseases in a patient with IPF who did not undergo surgical lung biopsy, and was included as one of the four major criteria for making a clinical diagnosis of IPF. BAL was also found to be useful in the diagnostic work-up of ILDs in the ATS/ERS international consensus classification of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs) of 2002 [3]. In the first evidence-based international IPF guidelines of 2011, however, there was a weak negative recommendation against performing a BAL cellular analysis in the diagnostic evaluation of suspected IPF [4].A marked increase in BAL lymphocyte percentage is of additional value in distinguishing cHP from other forms of fibrotic ILD https://bit.ly/3ciR8zG ER -