The carcinomatous abscess. A clinical paradox.

THE advent of antimicrobial drugs has had a profound influence on the management of suppurative, nontuberculous pulmonary infections. The most significant manifestations of this effect are a precipitous decrease in the mortality of many bacterial and aspiration pneumonias and a reduction in the incidence of secondary pulmonary necrosis. The "acute lung abscess" is so frequently aborted by prompt antibiotic administration that it has gradually become an uncommon clinical entity. Association of pneumonitis and abscess formation with bronchial obstruction produced by an underlying carcinoma is an established pathologic process. However, the diagnostic dilemma posed by this protean manifestation of bronchogenic carcinoma . . .