A 37-Year-Old Woman With Recurrent Hemoptysis.

CASE PRESENTATION: A 37-year-old woman presented with a 2-month history of recurrent hemoptysis and coughing. Her symptoms started 2 months after the delivery of her third child. In total, she endured four episodes of hemoptysis. All pregnancies were induced by intracytoplasmic sperm injections. She lacked a pulmonary or smoking history and had no history of foreign body aspiration or intubation. There was no dyspnea, dysphagia, fever, or chest pain, and the patient did not complain of purulent sputum. She currently did not use medication and was generally in good health.

Safety and efficacy of sequential chemotherapy with carboplatin plus gemcitabine followed by weekly paclitaxel in advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Improving survival in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will require new strategies or new drugs. Sequential administration of conventional non-cross-resistant cytotoxic drugs offers an opportunity to increase drug diversity while maintaining dose intensity. This Phase II trial was designed to assess the efficacy and feasibility of such a regimen in advanced NSCLC. METHODS: Patients with NSCLC stage IIIB or IV received as first-line treatment four cycles of carboplatin (AUC 5) (day 1) plus gemcitabine 1000 mg/m(2) (days 1 and 8) every 3 weeks. Thereafter, treatment continued with 12 weekly cycles of paclitaxel 80 mg/m(2). RESULTS: In total, 46 patients were included. Median age was 59.6 years (range 41.3-74.3 years) and 93.5 % (n = 43) had Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score of 0 or 1. All but 6 had stage IV disease, and 13 (28.3 %) had squamous cell carcinomas. Thirty-six (78 %) patients completed 4 cycles of carboplatin-gemcitabine and 35 patients received at least 1 cycle of paclitaxel, of whom 16 (46 % of total) patients completed 12 cycles of paclitaxel. The overall objective response rate was 49 %. Sixteen (37 %) patients had a response to carboplatin-gemcitabine, increasing to 21 (49 %) patients after administration of paclitaxel. Of the 13 assessable patients who showed a partial response (PR) on carboplatin-gemcitabine, 12 (92 %) patients showed also a PR on paclitaxel. Of 19 assessable patients with stable disease (SD) on carboplatin-gemcitabine, 4 (21 %) had a PR and 13 (68 %) SD on paclitaxel. Toxicity was moderate: 24 % stopped because of toxicity. CONCLUSION: Sequential chemotherapy with carboplatin-gemcitabine and weekly paclitaxel is active and feasible in advanced NSCLC patients.

Etanercept-related extensive pulmonary nodulosis in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE: Although nodulosis is a common extraarticular manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis, accelerated pulmonary nodulosis is a rare event. The etiology of rheumatoid nodules is still unknown. Nodulosis is not necessarily associated with active joint inflammation, suggesting different pathogenic mechanisms for nodule formation and synovial tissue inflammation. We describe a patient with extensive pulmonary nodulosis, probably related to etanercept treatment. Our case emphasizes the need for careful monitoring for adverse events during treatment with biologicals, especially since the differential diagnosis often includes a broad spectrum of diseases.

Pulmonary sclerosing hemangioma detected by fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in familial adenomatous polyposis: report of a case.

We present a 53-year-old female suffering from familial adenomatous polyposis, who was found to have a positive nodus, lateral to the hilus of the left lung, on routine FDG-PET scan. This lesion was found to be a sclerosing hemangioma. We found an aberrant beta-catenin expression on immunohistochemical staining, suggesting that sclerosing hemangioma and familial adenomatous polyposis share the same pathophysiology. It is important to be aware of the association of familial adenomatous polyposis and sclerosing hemangioma.