What is the difference between ipf and pulmonary fibrosis.?

What Is IPF?
Some Basic Facts
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a debilitating disease marked by progressive scarring of the lungs that gradually interferes with a person's ability to breathe and thus obtain enough oxygen for vital organs to function normally. IPF is one of approximately 200 diseases鈥攃ollectively called interstitial lung diseases (ILDs)鈥攊n which lung scarring is found. The lung scarring that occurs in ILDs is referred to as pulmonary fibrosis.
Sometimes pulmonary fibrosis can be linked to a particular cause, such as:

Exposure to inhaled inorganic dusts (e.g., asbestos fibers) or organic dusts (e.g., molds, fungi)
Chemotherapy or radiation therapy
Lung infection
Connective tissue disease, such as scleroderma or rheumatoid arthritis

I am not a doctor, so I hope I don't tell you wrong on this. The other responder is right, interstitial lung disease consists of hundreds of different conditions which cause inflammation and/or scarring around the tiny air sacs (or alveoli) in the lungs. Some of the conditions are relentless despite all known therapy, and death occurs within months or years. Other conditions are self limiting and/or respond to treatment, and the patient can live for many years with the disease. That is why biopsy is so important, so that treatment can be aimed at the underlying cause if one is identified. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis means scarring of the lungs for unknown reasons, but from what I understand, as a diagnosis, it usually only goes along with one particular pattern on biopsy (UIP, or Usual Interstitial Pneumonitis). Pulmonary fibrosis includes the other idiopathic and non-idiopathic interstitial lung diseases which cause scarring. My one year old daughter has an interstitial lung disease which was diagnosed at less than a month old, but she does not have IPF even though the cause of her disease is idiopathic. It is believed that my daughter is improving as she grows older, and we are hopeful that she might eventually overcome many of her lung symptoms. My aunt, on the other hand, was diagnosed in the spring of 2006 with IPF, and she has been told that she will not survive another ten years. Physically, they both are a lot alike. They both breathe hard and fast, they both need steroids to keep the inflammation down, and they both need oxygen to help them breathe. But the big difference to my family is that my daughter's disease (non-IPF ILD) seems to be stable right now, whereas my aunt's disease (IPF) is worsening.