EDITORIAL Is "nonusual interstitial pneumonia " an acceptable diagnosis?

disease entities [1] as follows: 1) usual interstitial pneuminia (UIP), 2) desquamative interstitial pneu-monia (DIP), 3) respiratory bronchiolitis-associated interstitial lung disease (RBILD), 4) nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP), 5) acute interstitial pneumonia (AIP), 6) cryptogenic organising pneumo-nia (COP), and 7) lymphoid interstitial pneumonia (LIP). These entities have primarily been defined pathologically [1, 2]. However, in clinical practice only a minority of patients with suspected IIP undergo surgical lung biopsy [3]. Diagnostic criteria that allow a clinical diagnosis in the absence of a surgical lung biopsy have been defined only for UIP [4]. In two previous publications the overall accuracy of a clinical diagnosis of UIP varied from 62–77 % and the overal