AN UNEXPECTED CHEST XRAY

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AN UNEXPECTED CHEST XRAY

Mrs MacLeod was a rather prudent 54 year old women, that presented with a shortness of breath, a chronic cough and recurrent pneumonia. She had an obstructive lung pattern on pulmonary function tests.

She come in for an xray of the chest. The chest XRAY was rather different. There was unequal lung volumes, with the right lung volume being larger than the left. There was also decreased left lung vessels noted. There were no pleural effusions and no pneumothorax present either. The right lung was perfectly normal.

Upon further investigation she reported to have had a significant childhood viral infection that resulted in distal airspace obstruction, probably secondary to an adenovirus or and RSV viral infection.

A case of Sweyer-James syndrome was diagnosed.

She was treated with influenza vaccinations, but in this case no lobectomy was performed as the no specific lung segment was identified.

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