Drug-induced inflammatory responses to the lung

A number of drugs can induce lung toxicity. The lung manifestations can ran ge from more acute responses such as an acute ARDS-like reaction, seen occa sionally at overdosing of drugs to more insidious reactions, which can occu r during conventional drug treatment. In many of these cases inflammation i s an important component in the pathophysiology of drug induced lung toxici ty. Very little is known about the mechanisms and initial events of drug-in duced injury. In this review a couple of mechanistic aspects, related to dr ug induced lung injury, will be discussed such as reactive oxygen species ( ROS)-generation, mediator release and disturbances in lung phospholipid tur nover. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.