Twin airway abnormalities complicating the management of acute asthma: a case report.

The term 'refractory asthma' includes patients with severe asthma, steroid-dependent and/or resistant asthma, difficult-to-treat asthma and irreversible asthma. In patients with to difficult to treat asthma, exclusion of other causes of persistent wheeze like vocal cord dysfunction, upper airway obstruction and allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis is important. Besides, the presence of anatomical abnormalities that could affect effective medication delivery could also result in sub-optimal treatment response. These factors reiterate the need for a rigorous and systematic approach to rule out alternative co-existent diseases or abnormalities in a patient with difficult-to-treat asthma. We hereby report a case of an asthmatic patient with refractory bronchospasm despite optimal treatment, wherein work-up for an additional pathophysiological process aided in successful management of his symptoms.

Tubercular and bacterial coinfection: A case series.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health issue in India. Although dual infection with tuberculosis and bacteria/fungi has been reported in immunocompromised patients, their co-occurrence in individuals with preserved immunity may complicate the clinical presentation, leading to inadequate treatment and unsatisfactory outcomes. In patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, the occurrence of tubercular lesions in atypical locations may further confound the clinical picture if only one of the pathogens is isolated, initially leading to a suboptimal therapeutic response. A strong index of suspicion and additional diagnostic testing may be required for diagnosis and treatment of the second infection. We report three unusual cases of concurrent tubercular and bacterial infection, of which two are pulmonary and one is extrapulmonary.

Endobronchial tuberculosis: two case reports and review of the literature.

Endobronchial tuberculosis commonly affects young patients and presents as acute or insidious onset cough, wheeze, low grade fever, and constitutional symptoms. Although endobronchial lesions usually result in sputum positivity for acid fast bacilli (AFB), a false negative sputum or absence of radiological lesions may result in delayed diagnosis. On the other hand, sputum positivity with presence of signs on chest radiology may lead to consideration of parenchymal TB as the primary diagnosis and the coexistence of endobronchial lesions may be missed until sequelae of the latter ensue. Besides, in elderly patients, consideration of other differentials like malignancy and pneumonia may lead to misdiagnosis. Hence, bronchoscopy is essential for confirmation of endobronchial TB. We hereby report two cases of endobronchial TB which stress the importance of bronchoscopic diagnosis for timely institution of treatment and prevention of permanent sequelae, respectively.

Pulmonary mucormycosis presenting with vocal cord paralysis.

Pulmonary mucormycosis is a relatively uncommon infection. It can present in various forms. Very few cases of pulmonary mucormycosis presenting as vocal cord paralysis have been described in the literature. We report a case of pulmonary mucormycosis presenting as vocal cord paralysis in an uncontrolled diabetic patient.