[Difficult diagnosis in a case of pulmonary epidermoid carcinoma]

We present a case of a 66 years old male patient, from urban area, smoker for 54 years, without special antecedents, hospitalized in our service with a pulmonary right lower lobe abscess, whose onset was 4 months ago, persistent under treatment in another pneumology service. Clinically and radiologically we suspected a pulmonary excavated right lower lobe neoplasia, but unsustained by fiber-bronchoscopy and thoracic computer tomography. By this reason the patient underwent exploratory thoracotomy and the diagnosis was confirmed by the biopsy of the resected specimen: pulmonary epidermoid carcinoma. The short term outcome was favourable.