Tracheobronchomalacia

Authors

P A de Jong
M G Lam Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

DOI:

Keywords:

Trachea, diseases

Abstract

Background: A 51-year-old female patient was referred for a high-resolution CT scan of the lungs, to screen for bronchiectasis and infection. She had a long medical history starting with right sided breast cancer (pT2N0M0) in 1993 for which she was treated with curative intention (mastectomy with peri-operative chemotherapy and post-operative radiotherapy: 50 Gray in 25 fractions).
In 2001, a suspicious lesion was seen on routine chest radiograph during follow-up. On a subsequent CT scan, the lesion could not be characterized with certainty. Therefore, a diagnostic thoracotomy was performed. On pathologic examination, the lesion consisted of reactive organizing cells without signs of malignancy.
After thoracotomy, she started having chest pain with severe dyspnea and suffered from recurrent lung infections, unexplained airway obstruction and atypical asthma (there was little reversibility of the airway obstruction with medical bronchodilatation).
She was hospitalized many times because of dyspnea and chest pain. Coronary insufficiency, lung emboli or cardiac failure could not be diagnosed. The final working diagnosis was atypical asthma with recurrent exacerbations and infections. The chest pain was diagnosed as neuropathic pain after mastectomy, radiotherapy and thoracotomy.
She was severely disabled, depending on oxygen supply at home.

Downloads

Published

2011-03-05

Issue

Vol. 94 No. 3 (2011)

Section

Original Article

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms. If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Submitting to the journal implicitly confirms that all named authors and rights holders have agreed to the above terms of publication. It is the submitting author's responsibility to ensure all authors and relevant institutional bodies have given their agreement at the point of submission.

Note: some institutions require authors to seek written approval in relation to the terms of publication. Should this be required, authors can request a separate licence agreement document from the editorial team (e.g. authors who are Crown employees).