Revue des maladies respiratoires
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The association of sarcoidosis and chylothorax is rare. A patient aged 64 presented with mediastinal sarcoidosis. Two years after the diagnosis he developed a right chylothorax. ⋯ Inspite of the steroid therapy there was as well biological evidence of continued disease activity (bronchoalveolar lavage lymphocytosis and increased serum angiotensin converting enzyme), as persistence of pleural effusion and mediastinal adenopathy; the contraction of the right hemithorax increased. Restrictive ventilatory defect worsened with a FVC of 44% and an FEV1 of 47% of the predicted values. The presence of a significant contraction of the hemithorax and of a severe restrictive ventilatory defect suggested the existence both of pleural fibrosis and of a compression of the main lymphatic pathways responsible for the chylothorax.
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The aortic rupture in the pulmonary parenchyma or the bronchi rarely results in an haemoptysis. It means in most of the cases the rupture of an aortica aneurysm. We relate the observation of a aorto-bronchial fistula from a tuberculosa origin in an old woman case. Although the tuberculosa aortitis is becoming very exceptional, it still remains the cause of aorta rupture, with the formation of a false aneurysm which is rapidly fatal and so, it is important to search for it before any capricious haemoptysis.
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The field of application for fibreoptic bronchoscopy (FB) in the intensive care unit has been extended since the generalised introduction of fibroscopes of 4.9 mm in diameter (previously called paediatric fibroscopes). Paediatric and neonatal intensive care units have benefited from the availability in the market of these small endoscopes for 3.5 and 2.2 mm. The protected brush and alveolar lavage (LBA) enables a specific diagnosis to be made in bacterial pneumonia acquired during ventilation. ⋯ In the case of respiratory burns, tracheobronchial fracture and post intubation stenosis, FB enables both the diagnosis to be established and the level at which the lesion occurs. In paediatric intensive care, a fibroscope of 3.5 mm is used for performing LBA (opportunistic pneumonias), difficult intubation (facial dysmorphia), endoscopic diagnoses, in particular where there is a suspicion of an endobronchial foreign body, the assessment of unexplained dyspnoea (tracheal stenosis by vascular ring) and obstructive lesions. In neonatal intensive care, a fibroscope of 2.2 mm is used for difficult intubation and the localisation of lesions induced by ventilation.