Table 1

Characteristics of study patients

Patient no	Age (years)	Sex	Smoking	Onset*	Quality of lung fibrotic lesions	BAL lymphocytes(%)	Treatment	Observation period(months)	Response to steroid treatment
BAL, bronchoalveolar lavage; M, male; F, female; S, current smoker; NS, non-smoker; Ex, ex-smoker; BOOP, bronchiolitis obliterans organising pneumonia; NSIP, non-specific interstitial pneumonia; UIP, usual interstitial pneumonia; CS, corticosteroid; IS, immunosuppressant.
*Chronic bird fancier’s lung (BFL) can be subgrouped clinically into two types: one subgroup develops interstitial pulmonary fibrosis after recurrent acute episodes (recurrent BFL) and the other subgroup has no history of acute episodes but has a slowly progressive chronic respiratory disease (insidious BFL).
1	65	M	S	Recurrent	BOOP-like	66.2	CS	77	Favourable
2	75	F	NS	Recurrent	BOOP-like	83.0	CS	77	Favourable
3	49	F	S	Recurrent	Cellular NSIP-like	73.0	CS	84	Favourable
4	45	M	Ex	Recurrent	Cellular NSIP-like	74.5	CS	114	Favourable
5	45	M	Ex	Recurrent	Cellular NSIP-like	82.0	CS	98	Favourable
6	55	F	NS	Recurrent	Cellular NSIP-like	86.0	CS	72	Favourable
7	64	F	NS	Insidious	Cellular NSIP-like	74.3	CS	64	Favourable
8	65	F	NS	Recurrent	Fibrotic NSIP-like	57.7	CS	138	Favourable
9	60	M	NS	Recurrent	Fibrotic NSIP-like	76.0	CS	60	Failure
10	61	F	Ex	Recurrent	Fibrotic NSIP-like	51.3	CS	66	Stable
11	50	F	NS	Recurrent	Fibrotic NSIP-like	62.2	CS+IS	63	Failure (died)
12	64	F	NS	Insidious	Fibrotic NSIP-like	27.0	None	–	–
13	53	M	Ex	Insidious	Fibrotic NSIP-like	28.0	CS+IS	60	Failure (died)
14	58	M	Ex	Insidious	Fibrotic NSIP-like	12.2	CS+IS	16	Failure (died)
15	56	M	S	Insidious	Fibrotic NSIP-like	11.8	CS+IS	48	Failure (died)
16	54	M	S	Insidious	UIP-like	18.2	None	–	–
17	49	M	S	Insidious	UIP-like	7.0	CS+IS	7	Failure (died)
18	72	F	NS	Insidious	UIP-like	38.8	CS	42	Stable
19	65	M	Ex	Insidious	UIP-like	22.3	CS+IS	29	Failure (died)
20	67	M	Ex	Insidious	UIP-like	10.2	CS+IS	12	Failure (died)
21	70	M	S	Insidious	UIP-like	32.0	None	–	–
22	69	M	S	Insidious	UIP-like	16.5	CS+IS	25	Failure (died)
23	64	M	Ex	Insidious	UIP-like	17.0	CS	36	Stable
24	69	F	NS	Insidious	UIP-like	9.0	CS+IS	6	Failure (died)
25	65	F	NS	Insidious	UIP-like	15.0	CS+IS	48	Failure (died)
26	68	M	S	Insidious	UIP-like	24.1	CS	48	Favourable