ABSTRACT
Tracheobronchial amyloidosis is the most common form of localized bronchopulmonary amyloidoses, although its diagnosis is rare in daily practice. We describe two new cases of localized tracheobronchial amyloidosis, one in the form of a single node and one diffuse. We discuss in particular the contribution of computed axial tomography, mainly for diagnosing the diffuse form, in which a finding of a thickened tracheobronchial wall and intraluminal nodes should lead to the suspicion of this entity. The treatment of choice in most cases is resection with an Nd-YAG laser.
Subject(s)
Amyloidosis/diagnostic imaging , Bronchial Diseases/diagnostic imaging , Tomography, X-Ray Computed , Tracheal Diseases/diagnostic imaging , Amyloidosis/pathology , Biopsy , Bronchi/pathology , Bronchial Diseases/pathology , Bronchoscopy , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Radiography, Thoracic , Trachea/diagnostic imaging , Trachea/pathology , Tracheal Diseases/pathologyABSTRACT
We present the case of a patient with spontaneous pneumothorax associated to pulmonary epidermoid carcinoma, which was not radiologically visible after pulmonary reexpansion. Neither it was macroscopically detected in the first thoracotomy performed for the treatment of the pneumothorax, being diagnosed after the histological study of the resected blisters. The association between pneumothorax and lung cancer is very rare, especially in the absence of other radiological disorders suggesting neoplasia after the pulmonary reexpansion. In these cases, the diagnosis is extremely difficult and it must be always suspected in patients with spontaneous pneumothorax and risk factors for pulmonary cancer.
