[A case of eosinophilic bronchiolitis complicated with eosinophilic sinusitis]

A 42-year-old man was admitted to our hospital, complaining of dyspnea and cough for six months. Chest CT demonstrated thickening of the bronchial walls and some centrilobular nodules. From the laboratory data and the clinical course, he was first suspected to have bronchial asthma. However, it was necessary to rule out bronchiolitis due to other causes, because he had no previous asthma history and also because of the CT findings. We performed surgical lung biopsy to make a definite diagnosis. The pathological findings revealed eosinophilic bronchiolitis. While dyspnea and the eosinophilic nasal polyp improved by treatment with oral steroid therapy, the eosionophilic sinusitis and bronchiolitis relapsed after steroid tapering. Improvement and relapse of nasal and lower airway symptoms were synchronously observed. Eosinophilic bronchiolitis and eosionophilic sinusitis in this case may be considered to be a category of airway eosinophilic inflammation.