A case series of patients on chemotherapy with dyspnoea and pulmonary infiltrates

BMJ Case Rep. 2013 Jun 5:2013:bcr2013009105. doi: 10.1136/bcr-2013-009105.

Abstract

Clinicians often assume that patients who develop pulmonary symptoms and radiographic infiltrates while receiving cytotoxic chemotherapy have opportunistic pulmonary infection or chemotherapy-related interstitial lung disease. We describe two cases of rare complications of commonly used chemotherapeutic agents (gemcitabine-induced eosinophilic pneumonia and rituximab-induced hypersensitivity pneumonitis) that vindicate this assumption but a third case of scleroderma-associated interstitial lung disease that became clinically manifest in a patient who was receiving chemotherapy. The latter case highlights the need for vigilance for other causes of interstitial lung disease in patients receiving chemotherapy.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Dyspnea / complications*
  • Humans
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / complications
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / diagnostic imaging
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / drug therapy*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed