Unlabelled: Thoracic endometriosis syndrome (TES) is a rare condition where endometrial tissue is found in the pleura, parenchyma, and/or diaphragm. Haemoptysis is a common manifestation of pulmonary endometriosis and can be cyclic, aligning with the menstrual cycle. Patients can present with residual cough once menses have stopped.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSerratia marcescens endocarditis is a rare occurrence. We describe a case of Serratia endocarditis in a patient with a prosthetic valve. The clinical course was complicated by widespread embolic phenomena causing stroke, gangrene of extremities, and septic emboli to the lungs, spleen, and eyes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Protease inhibitors (PIs) are a vital part of the antiretroviral therapy. Long-term use of PIs may cause lipodystrophy, a clinical syndrome characterized by peripheral lipoatrophy and central fat accumulation, which may increase the risk of developing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in HIV-infected patients. We hypothesize that a longer duration of PIs' use might be associated with increasing severity of OSA in HIV-infected patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Right-heart catheterization is currently the gold standard method for detecting pulmonary hypertension (PH) and grading its severity. Our study determined the utility of computerized tomography (CT) scans for detecting PH in patients with left-sided heart disease, thereby potentially avoiding the overuse of invasive right-heart catheterization.
Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on 40 patients with left-sided cardiac pathology who had undergone both right-heart catheterization and CT scanning of the chest.
Introduction: Postpneumonectomy syndrome is a rare condition that is characterized by dyspnea resulting from an extreme mediastinal shift and bronchial compression of the residual lung following surgical pneumonectomy. It is even rarer for this syndrome to present in patients without a history of prior lung surgery but induced by autopneumonectomy due to parenchymal disease, an entity termed 'postpneumonectomy-like syndrome'.
Case Presentation: We present a rare case of a 91-year-old Puerto Rican man presenting with progressively worsening dyspnea with a history of pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosed 40 years earlier who developed severe unilateral lung fibrosis.
Hepatic hydrothorax usually presents in association with ascites, but there are rare cases when it does not. This case helps to support the differential of hepatic hydrothorax in patients who have a history of liver cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and recurrent pleural effusions without ascites. We hope to support the conclusion that a patient with recurrent pleural effusions, without ascites, does not exclude gastrointestinal involvement in its etiology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMounier-Kuhn syndrome is a rare clinical entity. It was described in 1932 to refer to the presence of tracheobronchomegaly. The clinical presentation is variable and it can occur in several different age groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe a 37-year-old male engineer who presented with cough and dyspnea 3 weeks after exposure to dust resulting from the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC). Radiographs of the chest and high-resolution CT demonstrated diffuse miliary nodularity. Lung biopsy specimens confirmed the presence of diffuse, noncaseating granulomatous nodules.
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