cystic lung diseases
- related: Pulmonology
- tags: #permanent #pulmonology
Cystic lung disease can have multiple etiologies. You must first distinguish between cysts and emphysema (emphysema vs cyst on CT imaging)
The common cystic lung diseases to think about in outpatient settings are the “L” diseases:
- lymphangioleiomyomatosis LAM: young female, pneumothorax, tuberous sclerosis, chylous effusion
- LIP lymphoid interstitial pneumonia: autoimmune association
- pulmonary langerhans histiocytosis PLCH: smoker, pneumothorax, irregular cysts, nodules
- light chain deposition disease LCDD: amyloidosis, pneumothorax
Very rare disorder includes birt hogg dube syndrome (lower lobe predominant cysts) and primary cavitary sarcoidosis (PCS) (reported in less than 1% of cases).
Lastly, infectious causes, primarily PCP pneumocystis jirovecii can cause cystic lung diseases with bilateral ground glass opacities.
- LAM vs PLCH vs LIP vs PBML image, histology, PFT
- LAM has cysts in normal lungs whereas Langerhan has abnormal lungs