Pulmonary inflammatory pseudotumor--a report of 28 cases

Pulmonary inflammatory pseudotumor is an uncommon benign lesion of the lung. In Korea, most literature of the pulmonary inflammatory pseudotumor was case reports.

We collected 28 cases of pulmonary inflammatory pseudotumor in Korea. This collective series included 4 cases from our hospital and 24 cases were reviewed from the literature since 1977. The analysis involved the age, sex, chief complaint, hematologic examination, size and location of the lesion, cavity formation, presence of calcification and treatment method.

Male was more prevalent (81.5%) than female and mean age was 37.9 years old (6-63 yrs). Chief complaints were cough (44.4%), chest pain (29.6%), fever (22.2%), hemoptysis (15%), sputum (15%) and dyspnea (11.1%). There were asymptomatic cases in 11.1%. Hematologic examination revealed normal finding (53.3%) and anemia (20%). The mean size of the lesion was 4.76 cm (1.5-14 cm) and the locations were parenchymal (85.7%), endobronchial (10.7%) and endotracheal (3.6%). Except the endotracheal case, the lesions were in the right (46.4%), the left (42.8%) and bilateral (7.1%). Calcifications (18.5%) and cavitations (11.1%) were present. Diagnostic methods were open thoracotomy (82.1%), bronchoscopy (3.6%), needle aspiration biopsy (7.1%) and core needle gun biopsy (7.1%). Treatments were surgery (85.2%), steroid therapy (7.4%), rigid bronchoscopic removal (3.7%) and observation (3.7%). Postoperative recurrence occurred in only 1 case (4.3%).

Pulmonary inflammatory pseudotumor was more prevalent in the male, and patients presented with the respiratory symptoms were common. It was necessary to do surgery in most cases for diagnosis and/or treatment.