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Abstract
A 39-year-old Caucasian woman, who has never smoked, presented a 16-year-duration chronic dry cough. She was prescribed by her general physician with corticosteroid and long-acting β-agonist inhalers assuming it was asthma, with mild symptomatic improvement. When cough got more persistent and associated with exertional dyspnoea and wheezing, a chest CT scan was performed, which showed multiple bilateral micronodular formations and diffuse mosaic lung pattern with air trapping. She was sent to our Respiratory Department and performed a bronchoalveolar lavage and cryobiopsy that were inconclusive. She underwent surgical lung biopsy with pathology revealing multiple foci of neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia and tumourlets associated with constrictive bronchiolitis, a histological pattern suggestive of diffuse idiopathic neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia (DIPNECH). DIPNECH is a rare and preinvasive disease. Presenting symptoms can be cough and breathlessness. At the time of writing, the patient is on octreotide with symptomatic improvement.
- respiratory cancer
- pathology
- radiology
- interstitial lung disease
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Footnotes
Contributors All the authors of this article have directly participated in the planning, execution and analysis of this case report. PIP was involved in patient’s follow-up consult, bibliographic research and manuscript writing. DC and ML were involved in patient’s follow-up consult and manuscript review. AO performed the histopathology analysis, contributed to the diagnosis of the disease and manuscript review. All authors read and approved the final version submitted.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.