Chest
Volume 80, Issue 2, August 1981, Pages 242-243
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Bronchopulmonary Lavage in Alveolar Microlithiasis

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We describe the first known use of volume-controlled bronchopulmonary lavage in a case of alveolar microlithiasis. Although the procedure has often been discussed in the literature as theoretically useful in the therapy for this disease, in our case it showed no efficacy in clearing the alveolar spherules.

Section snippets

CASE REPORT

A 15-year-old girl from Rio Grande was admitted to our hospital on Oct 10, 1974, for evaluation of abnormalities noted on previous chest x-ray films. Her local physician had suggested that she could have far-advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The patient was entirely asymptomatic, denying dyspnea, cough, hemoptysis, chest pain, loss of weight, or night sweats. The patient had no known exposure to toxic dusts. Her family history disclosed no pulmonary disease; she had two older healthy brothers.

On

DISCUSSION

As could be expected from previous findings that the calcific bodies filling the alveoli in alveolar microlithiasis vary in size from 0.25 to 1.0 mm, the procedure failed to demonstrate any radiologic, laboratory, or clinical efficacy in clearing the abnormal alveolar spherules typical of the disease. Probably most of the spherules are larger than the terminal bronchioles.

Even in a 15-year-old girl, in whom we could expect either that the spherules had not significantly increased in size and in

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