Bronchopleural Cutaneous Fistula

Bronchopleural Cutaneous Fistula We report the imaging findings of a 60-year-old man who presented to our institution with dyspnea and sepsis. He had undergone neoadjuvant radiation therapy and a left lobectomy 3 years previously for a non-small-cell lung carcinoma. He had been well at follow-up in another institution but recently developed worsening dyspnea. CT of the thorax was performed (Fig. 1), which revealed a bronchopleural cutaneous fistula. This is a very rare late complication of lung resection for tumors and aspergillomas [1]. Patients complain of the unusual ability of being able to breathe with their upper airway occluded, and recurrent sepsis is of significant morbidity. Treatment includes endobronchial balloon occlusion and selective endobronchial intubation [1, 2]. This case highlights the vivid clinical picture that multiplanar reconstruction with MDCT can evoke. Ailbhe O’Neill Peter Beddy St. James’s Hospital Trinity College Dublin, Ireland DOI:10.2214/AJR.07.3441 WEB—This is a Web exclusive article.