May 2011 Arizona Thoracic Society Notes

A dinner meeting was held at Scottsdale Shea Medical Center on May 12, 2011 from 6:30-8:00 PM. The meeting was not held at the usual time because of the upcoming American Thoracic Society meeting in Denver. Twenty-four were in attendance including representatives from the pulmonary, pulmonary pathology and chest radiology communities. A projector has been donated to the Arizona Thoracic Society by the Phoenix Pulmonary and Critical Care Research and Education Foundation for use at these meetings. Seven cases were presented and discussed:

1. Jud Tillinghast presented a case and a CT scan of an over distended endotracheal tube. Discussion centered on the need to measure cuff pressure.

2. Jessica Hurley presented a case of influenza H1N1 in pregnancy. The case will presented at the American Thoracic Society meeting in Denver later this week.

3. Thomas Colby presented a case of an intravascular B cell lymphoma. Discussion centered on the pathologic appearance of this tumor.

4. Cristian Jivcu presented a case of a large cell B cell lymphoma.  Discussion detailed the pathologic appearance and classification of B cell lymphomas.

5. Thomas Colby presented a case of a patient with restrictive lung disease. Biopsy revealed vascular proliferation with veins in the vascular bundle. No one could recall a similar case.

6. Emad Wissa presented a case of tracheopathia osteochondroplastica. Discussion centered on the usually benign nature of the disease

7. Lewis Wesselius presented a case of a patient with relapsing polychondritis who failed anti-inflammatory therapy and eventually required stents to maintain tracheal patency.

Mike Gotway gave a short presentation on the differing CT appearance of tracheal calcification, comparing and contrasting tracheopathia osteochondroplastica and amyloidosis.

Richard A. Robbins, MD