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Tommy Lwin (Medical Student)
A 20-month-old girl weighing 12 kg presented with 2 weeks of worsening dry cough and wheeze. Aside from respiratory symptoms she was otherwise well, without fever or weight loss. There was no history of foreign body inhalation or choking. She had no significant personal or family medical history, and her immunisations were up to date. Prior to admission she had been treated for 1 week for a community-acquired pneumonia with oral amoxicillin and roxithromycin, as well as for a first presentation asthma exacerbation with oral prednisolone (2 mg/kg) and inhaled salbutamol, three hourly. Despite these interventions no clinical improvement had been noted. On examination, her respiratory rate and oxygen saturations were normal. She had mild respiratory distress, a loud biphasic wheeze and a prolonged expiratory phase. A chest X-ray (CXR) demonstrated hyperinflation of the right lung (figure 1A). Given the suspicion of a foreign body obstructing a right-sided airway, a rigid bronchoscopy was performed which showed an isolated submucosal lesion in the right main bronchus causing airway narrowing (figure 1B). To further characterise the lesion, a CT of the chest was performed, which demonstrated a subcarinal mass (figure 1C), causing significant extrinsic compression of the distal right main bronchus and bronchus intermedius. There was no intraluminal perforation of the mass.
Shivanthan Shanthikumar (Respiratory Fellow) and Jo Harrison (Respiratory Consultant)
The most likely differential diagnoses for a subcarinal mass in this patient include a neoplastic …
Footnotes
Contributors SS and JH contributed to the conception and planning of the article and act as joint guarantors of the content. All authors contributed to the writing and review of the article.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.