[Long-term therapeutic effects of erythromycin and newquinolone antibacterial agents on diffuse panbronchiolitis]

The present study reviewed and summarized the long-term therapeutic effects of erythromycin or newquinolone antibacterial agents on diffuse panbronchiolitis. Various parameters before and after the treatment were analyzed in 101 patients selected from 227 diffuse panbronchiolitis patients gathered from 26 institutes in Japan. Patients had been treated with either erythromycin or newquinolone antibacterial agent for more than 3 months. Patients treated with erythromycin showed significant improvement of dyspnea on exertion, findings of chest X-ray, data on blood gas analysis, rate of ESR, titer of cold coagulation and amount of sputum, compared with patients treated with the newquinolone antibacterial agent. Among the patients treated with erythromycin, those patients with the initial high cold coagulation titer showed better improvement following treatment. However, there was no significant difference in improvement, depending upon either the duration between the time of onset of the disease, the initiation of treatment, and the initial severity of the disease.