Purvesh Patel

Spontaneous Pneumomediastinum: Time for Consensus

Pneumomediastinum (PM) is defined as the presence of free air in the mediastinal cavity. It is often regarded as a revealing sign of a more serious medical condition. PM is broken down into two categories, one, with an instigating event, referred to as secondary PM. The other is when free air is discovered in the mediastinal cavity without a clear etiology, referred to as spontaneous pneumomediastinum (SPM). Often misdiagnosed due to the vague nature of presenting symptoms, SPM must be part of the differential diagnosis of a chest pain patient to expedite discovery and if necessary, management. A MedLine/PubMED search was performed identifying all relevant articles with “SPM” in the title. Six case series were reviewed to determine what clinical scenario constitutes a possible case of SPM. Results showed that almost all patients with SPM exhibited some chest pain, but Hamman’s crunch was present in only one-fifth of patients. Patients with certain pre-existing pulmonary diseases showed a greater propensity for the presence of free air in the mediastinal cavity. SPM must be diagnosed and managed promptly due to rare, but serious complications and any chest pain with an unknown etiology should contain SPM in the differential diagnosis.

A 65-Year-Old Female With an Endobronchial Mass Lesion

Glomus tumor is a rare, predominantly benign, soft tissue tumor. The lower respiratory tract is an uncommon site of origin of glomus tumor, so endobronchial glomus tumor is extremely rare. Such tumors are mostly benign and identified incidentally on imaging. Diagnosis is confirmed by immunohistochemical staining, and resection is the treatment of choice. We report a middle-age female with endobronchial glomus tumor. This is 23rd case of reported pulmonary glomus tumor, to the best of our knowledge.

Cannon ball appearance on radiology in a middle-aged diabetic female

Pulmonary tuberculosis is commonly presented as cavitary lesion and infiltrations. It commonly involves upper lobe. Lower lobe involvement is less common. Various atypical presentations of tuberculosis on radiology are reported like mass, solitary nodule, multi lober involvement including lower lobes. Atypical presentations are more commo in patients with immunocompromised conditions like Diabetes Mellitus, anemia, renal failure, liver diseases, HIV infection, malignancy, patients on immunosuppressive therapy. Cannon ball presentation of pulmonary tuberculosis is extremely rare and not so common. Common causes of cannon ball presentation in lung are metastasis, fungal infections, Wegener′s grannulomatosis, sarcoidosis, etc. We report here a case of middle year female with diabetes mellitus presented with atypical symptoms with cannon ball appearance on radiology and found to be of tuberculosis in origin. Thus any patients with immunocompromised condition can present with atypical manifestation of tuberculosis either clinically or radiologicaly in high endemic countries for tuberculosis.