Increasing Role of Macrolide Anti-inflammatory Therapy in Secondary Organizing Pneumonia.

To the Editor: Organizing pneumonia (OP) is a diffuse interstitial lung disease with histopathologic proliferation of granulation tissue extending from the alveoli and alveolar ducts to the bronchioles after alveolar epithelial injury, either idiopathically [cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP)] or because of a known etiology [secondary organizing pneumonia (SOP)]. Long-term corticosteroid therapy has been the recommended first line therapy in COP, with treatment of the underlying etiology reserved for SOP. We present 2 SOP cases which were successfully treated with long-term macrolide antibiotics alone and as adjunctive therapy to corticosteroids, respectively.