Patient Education - Lung Cancer Program at UCLA
Educating yourself about lung cancer:
Diseases of the Lung: Lung disease:
Lung disease
Definition
Lung disease is any disease or disorder where lung function does not work properly. There are three main types of lung disease:
- Obstructive lung disease -- a decrease in the exhaled air flow caused by a narrowing or blockage of the airways, which can occur with asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.
- Restrictive lung disease -- a decrease in the total volume of air that the lungs are able to hold. Often, this is due to a decrease in the elasticity of the lungs themselves or caused by a problem related to the expansion of the chest wall during inhalation.
- A defect in the ability of the lung's air sac tissue to move oxygen into a person's blood.
Most lung diseases actually involve a combination of these categories, such as emphysema, which involves both airflow obstruction and oxygenation problems.
Major lung diseases include:
- Asthma
- Chronic bronchitis
- COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
- Emphysema
- Interstitial lung disease
- Pulmonary fibrosis
- Sarcoidosis
Other lung diseases include:
- Asbestosis
- Aspergilloma
- Aspergillosis
- Aspergillosis - acute invasive
- Atelectasis
- Eosinophilic pneumonia
- Lung cancer
- Metastatic lung cancer
- Necrotizing pneumonia
- Pleural effusion
- Pneumoconiosis
- Pneumocystosis
- Pneumonia
- Pneumonia in immunodeficient patient
- Pneumothorax
- Pulmonary actinomycosis
- Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis
- Pulmonary anthrax
- Pulmonary arteriovenous malformation
- Pulmonary edema
- Pulmonary embolus
- Pulmonary histiocytosis X (eosinophilic granuloma)
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Pulmonary nocardiosis
- Pulmonary tuberculosis
- Pulmonary veno-occlusive disease
- Rheumatoid lung disease
