[A case of pulmonary parenchymal endometriosis].

In 1982, a 45-year-old woman was hospitalized because of an abnormal lung shadow. The chest film provided evidence of pulmonary nodules. She was asymptomatic and had no labolatory abnormalities. Exploratory excision was performed to further assess the pulmonary nodules. The initial diagnosis was a suspected "hemangiopericytoma". She received combination chemotherapy but it was not effective. The nodules increased and decreased in size and number over the next decade from 1982, reaching a maximum by 1990 and a minimum by the end of 1992. However, her clinical condition remained stable during this period. Retrospective immunohistochemical analysis of CD10 and progesterone receptors confirmed a diagnosis of pulmonary parenchymal endometriosis. This was an unusual case of pulmonary parenchymal endometriosis that demonstrated various changes in the size and number of nodules without symptoms. There are few previous reports that demonstrated such nodular variation without symptoms over the course of disease.

Elevation of macrophage-derived chemokine in eosinophilic pneumonia: a role of alveolar macrophages.

Macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC/CCL22) and thymus-and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC/CCL17) are ligands for CC chemokine receptor 4. Recently, TARC has been reported to play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic eosinophilic pneumonia (IEP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of MDC in IEP and other interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). MDC and TARC in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in patients with ILDs and healthy volunteers (HV). We also examined the expression of MDC mRNA in alveolar macrophages (AM) by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Both MDC and TARC were detected only in BALF obtained from IEP patients. The concentration of MDC was higher than that of TARC in all cases. The level of MDC in IEP correlated with that of TARC. AM from IEP patients expressed a significantly higher amount of MDC than that from HV at the levels of protein and mRNA. MDC in BALF from IEP dramatically decreased when patients achieved remission. These findings suggest that MDC, in addition to TARC, might be involved in the pathogenesis of IEP, and AM play a role in the elevation of MDC in IEP.