Giant cell interstitial pneumonia: an unusual finding in a case of preoperative death

Giant cell interstitial pneumonia (GIP) is an exceedingly rare, debatable, perplexing, occupational lung disease, which most commonly affects individuals exposed to hard metal dust. We report a case of GIP in a 60-year-old man, scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft surgery and died during induction of general anesthesia despite all efforts to resuscitate him. Patient's relatives lodged complaint with the police alleging the negligence by the attending physicians. Despite inaccessible data pertaining to the occupation, clinical history, and radiographic findings, the diagnosis was GIP due to the presence of intra-alveolar, bizarre, "cannibalistic" multinucleated giant cells-the histologic sine qua non of GIP. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of GIP in the world literature that was diagnosed on histopathologic examination of lung tissue obtained at medicolegal autopsy.