Case ReportsPulmonary Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis Presenting as a Solitary Nodule
Section snippets
REPORT OF A CASE
A 45-year-old male cigarette smoker presented with an asymptomatic solitary pulmonary nodule in the left upper lobe. He underwent thoracotomy and wedge excision of the lesion. After the operation, he continued to smoke. Twenty-one years later, at the age of 66 years, he presented with a new asymptomatic solitary nodule in the right upper lobe. Computed tomography showed only a single pulmonary nodule with no evidence of interstitial lung disease. Since the second lesion was benign by
DISCUSSION
In our patient, PLCH presented as an asymptomatic solitary pulmonary nodule, a rare manifestation of this disease. To our knowledge, only 3 similar patients have been described,2, 3, 4 only 2 in the peer-reviewed literature.2, 4
Fichtenbaum et al2 described a 58-year-old man with a 42-pack-year history of cigarette smoking in whom a nodule (1.0 cm in greatest dimension) was detected in the right middle lobe on a preoperative chest radiograph. He was asymptomatic with no radiographic
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