Pathophysiology of acute fibrinous and organizing pneumonia - Clinical and morphological spectra.

Acute Fibrinous and Organizing Pneumonitis (AFOP) is a disease with histopathological pattern characterized by the presence of intra-alveolar fibrin in the form of fibrin "balls" and organizing pneumonia represented by inflammatory myofibroblastic polyps. Symptoms of this rare interstitial pulmonary disease can be either acute or sub-acute and it can rapidly progress to death. Diagnosis should be considered in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) if patients' symptomatology and radiology correlates with non-responding or progressive pneumonia and when morphology, on biopsies, encompasses criteria of diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) and organizing pneumonia (OP) balancing in between. Three clinical cases of patients presenting severe lung disease requiring mechanical ventilation and prolonged intensive care fitted on the variable spectra of AFOP histopathology and had poor outcome: a 23 year-old women had AFOP in the context of antiphospholipid syndrome pulmonary compromise; a 35 year-old man developed a letal intensive care pneumonia with AFOP pattern registered in post-mortem biopsy; and a 79 year-old man died 21 days after intensive care unit treatment of a sub-pleural organizing pneumonia with intra-alveolar fibrin, seen in post-mortem biopsy. The predominance of acute fibrin alveolar deposition pattern is helpful in raising AFOP differential diagnosis while organizing pneumonia pattern establishes a wider range of diagnosis that can go till solitary pulmonary nodule, remaining indefinite to suggest diagnosis. The performance time of biopsy in a larger number of clinical cases may be helpful in establishing the evolutionary morphological pattern, taking in mind the poor outcome of the disease, deserving rapid diagnosis to define treatment.

[Enteric nutrition and esophageal impactation: what relationship]. / Alimentação entérica e impactação alimentar esofágica: que relação?

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: In the intensive care unit (ICU), enteral feeding is the method of choice for providing adequate nutrition in intubated patients. The oesophageal impactation (EI) by enteric nutrition (EN) results from solidification of the solution in esophagus lumen with formation of bezoar and although rare, is gradually becoming more common in clinical practice. In recent years some have been diagnosed cases of enteric nutrition impact, in an ICU. The authors seek to better understand their risk factors in order to prevent its occurrence. METHODS: Retrospective study of patients with endoscopic diagnosis of EI, in ICU, over a period of 3 years. RESULTS: There were 1367 patients in the ICU, 1003 did EN and 9 had a EI diagnosis. Mean age - 66 years, 7 males, all of them with invasive ventilation support. Mean ICU stay - 32 days, and EI at 20th day, 12 days after started EN. In all the cases, EN is due to the solidification of the EN solution in esophagus. 7 patients had esophageal reflux risk factors: 4 previously known and 3 identified after EI diagnosis. The endoscopic treatment was successful in 7 patients. CONCLUSION: The EI frequency is low. The ICU average delay (32 days) in this series is twice the total of patients admitted during this period (14,27 days), reflecting the greater severity of the patients studied. Several cases could be implicated in the etiology of that clinical entity. Whenever risk factors are present it should be considered both the endoscopic introduction of nasojejunal tube and specific positioning strategies, to prevent reflux and gastric estasis. Medical and endoscopic treatment solved the majority of related cases that are available in the literature; however, in some specific cases it was necessary to use surgical treatment.

[Catastrophic primary antiphospholipid syndrome]. / Síndroma antifosfolípido primária catastrófica.

Catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome develops in a minority of patients with antiphospholipid syndrome, and is characterized by acute thrombotic microvasculopathy with multiorganic involvement (three or more organs). The aetiology is unknown, the diagnosis is complex, and the treatment is empiric, mortality may approach 50%. The authors present a clinical case of catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome, diagnosed in a patient with abdominal pain and severe respiratory failure.