Rare surgical treatment of "asthma" with post-partum cardiomyopathy: case report and review of literature

ABSTRACT

We report the case of a 37-year-old woman who presented with severe persistent "asthma" requiring repeated courses of steroids and bronchodilators. Spirometry was suggestive of upper airway obstruction. Computerized tomography scan [CT] demonstrated a polypoid mass in the cervical trachea obstructing 90% of the lumen. Urgent tracheostomy was performed followed by bronchscopic excision of the mass. Histopathological diagnosis of schwannoma was confirmed using immunohistochemical markers. We found only 20 primary tracheal schwannoma cases previously reported in the English literature