CASE REPORT   

Minerva Pneumologica 2019 June;58(2):70-6

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4954.19.01848-0

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Computer tomography features of pulmonary vascular involvement in Behçet’s disease

Alberto BRUNO ¹ ✉, Giuseppe CUTAIA ¹, Lorenzo TESÈ ², Domenico ALBANO ¹, Claudio LETO ¹, Dario GIAMBELLUCA ¹, Lucrezia BRUNO ³, Leonardo SALVAGGIO ¹, Cesare GAGLIARDO ¹, Antonio LO CASTO ¹, Massimo GALIA ¹, Giuseppe SALVAGGIO ¹

¹ Department of Radiology, DIBIMED, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy; ² Department of Radiology, Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Villa Sofia Cervello, Palermo, Italy; ³ Unit of Pediatric, DIPROSAMI, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Behçet’s disease is a chronic and multisystemic inflammatory vascular disease of unknown etiology, affecting vessels of all kinds and sizes. The involvement of the vascular system is observed in approximately 5-30% of patients. The most frequent vascular manifestations are venous thrombosis followed by arterial aneurysms and arterial thrombosis. The identification of vascular involvement is very important for prognosis, indeed the rupture of an arterial aneurysm represents the leading cause of sudden death in patients with Behçet’s disease. Computed tomography (CT) plays a crucial role in the identification and in the follow-up of vascular involvement. In this paper, we report the case of a 42-year-old woman with Behçet’s disease, admitted to our emergency department for hemoptysis, showing pulmonary and visceral artery aneurysms identified at CT examination. A particular “string of beads” appearance of pulmonary arteries is described. We report, also, follow-up CT examination after medical therapy showing pulmonary artery aneurysms reduction and visceral artery aneurysms stability.

KEY WORDS: Behçet syndrome; Pulmonary artery; Tomography, X-ray computed; Hemoptysis