IMAGES IN THORAX
Pulmonary cryptococcosis mimicking solitary lung cancer in an immunocompetent patient
1 Chest Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan, ROC
2 Department of Nuclear Medicine, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan, ROC
3 Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
Correspondence to:
Dr C-B Lin, 707, Sec. 3 Chung-Yang Rd, Hualien, Taiwan 970, ROC; evan7622@yahoo.com.tw
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A 48-year-old Chinese male henhouse keeper was admitted with dyspnoea. A plain chest radiograph and CT scan indicated a solitary right lung mass with invasion to the trachea (fig 1A and B). Positron emission tomography with 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG-PET) showed accumulation in the lung mass (fig 1C). A transbronchial biopsy specimen provided a pathological diagnosis of pulmonary cryptococcosis (fig 2). There were no malignant cells in the specimen. A fungus culture grew Cryptococcus neoformans, but a study of the cerebrospinal fluid showed no evidence of cryptococcal meningitis. A serum HIV test was negative. The patient was treated with oral itraconazole 400 mg/day for 1 year without surgical intervention. A CT scan of the thorax after 2 years showed no evidence of the pulmonary lesion.
Figure 1 (A) Chest radiograph and (B) CT scan showing a solitary mass over the right upper lung area. (C) FDG-PET scan | |||||||||
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