In digging up the past of this 90-year-old man, a recent Eastern European immigrant to the USA, what is a historical treatment for an ongoing endemic disease he might have received?
- 1Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Lutheran Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA
- 2Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, State University Of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA
- 3Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Coney Island Hospial, Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Correspondence to Dr Francois Abi-Fadel, Department Of Medicine, Division Of Pulmonary and Critical Care, State University Of New York, Downstate Medical Center, 450 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA; af_francois{at}yahoo.com
- Received 20 March 2012
- Accepted 15 May 2012
- Published Online First 29 June 2012
- ARDS
- bronchoscopy
- COPD exacerbations
- imaging/CT MRI etc
- rare lung diseases
- tuberculosis
- pleural disease
- thoracic surgery
Answer: Oleothorax with expansion.
This 90-year-old man presented for an incidental finding on a chest radiograph of an opacification of the entire left hemithorax. He denied chest pain, haemoptysis, cough, fever, weight loss, night sweats or dyspnoea. Review of the patient's history revealed that 60 years ago he was treated in a sanatorium in Russia, and recollects that his ‘lung …
