Chest

Chest

Volume 107, Issue 2, February 1995, Pages 569-570
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Selected Reports
Unilateral Hyperlucency With Left Lower Lobe Mass in a Patient With Bronchial Asthma

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.107.2.569Get rights and content

Mucoepidermoid tumors are rare bronchial adenomas whose clinical presentation can mimic that of bronchial asthma. Bronchial adenoma should be included in the differential diagnosis of a patient with a persistent radiographic abnormality and clinical features of bronchial asthma. We present an adolescent female with a history suggestive of bronchial asthma and a persistent left lower lobe atelectasis, who later was found to have a low-grade mucoepidermoid tumor.

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CASE REPORT

A 17-year-old black female adolescent with a history of recurrent exacerbation of bronchial asthma being treated and followed up by her local pediatrician was admitted to the University Medical Center, Jackson, Miss for breathlessness, wheezing, and nonproductive cough not responding to (β-agonist metered-dose inhaler. She denied a history of fever, preceding upper respiratory tract infection, or any allergies. She was neither a smoker nor an alcoholic. She gave a history of recent

DISCUSSION

There are very few differential diagnoses for an initial chest radiographic presentation remarkable for left lower lobe hyperlucency and atelactasis with a clinical presentation of bronchial asthma. Mucus plug, foreign body, pneumothorax, and endobronchial tumors can present in this manner and have been reported in the literature.1, 2, 3, 4 Aspiration of a foreign body was excluded on the basis of a negative history. Chest CT was helpful in defining the extent of a soft-tissue mass and

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Copyright © 1995 The American College of Chest Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.