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עמוד בית
Tue, 10.12.24

IMAGING

IMAJ | volume 26

Journal 3, March 2024
pages: 202

Radiology and Histology of a Rheumatoid Pulmonary Nodule

1 Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, NY, USA 2 Department of Pathology, Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, NY, USA 3 Section of Interventional Pulmonology, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, NY, USA

Summary

A 69-year-old woman with a 30-year history of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on leflunomide presented with dizziness and weakness. Vital signs, cardiopulmonary auscultation, and laboratory studies were normal. The serological status of her RA was unknown. She exhibited ulnar deviation and swan-necking of the hands but no nodular skin lesions. She was an active smoker. Chest radiography revealed an opacity in the right lung. Computed tomography (CT) showed multiple pulmonary nodules and a dominant thick-walled cavitary mass in the periphery of the right lower lobe [Figure 1A]. Due to concern for a malignancy or infection, she underwent a bronchoscopy with a biopsy of the mass, which was non-diagnostic. A subsequent transthoracic needle biopsy demonstrated a central zone of necrosis surrounded by a cuff of palisading epithelioid histiocytes with the presence of occasional giant cells [Figure 1B]. There was no malignancy, and stains for micro-organisms were negative. In this clinical context, biopsy results were consistent with a pulmonary rheumatoid nodule (PRN).

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