Yesterday I presented a case on @CPSolvers of a young man presenting with cough and shoulder pain, found to have a thick-walled RUL cavity, LLL masslike consolidation, and numerous nodules. Here are some teaching points (& spoilers):
There's a great review of 💨 Cavitary Pulmonary Disease 💨 here (cmr.asm.org), much of which is summarized in the @CPSolvers schema attached. According to the authors, cavitation is relatively uncommon in autoimmune diseases despite frequent pulmonary involvement 💨
That said, GPA is the exception. In a 77 person study, ~50% of GPA patients w/ NODULES had cavitation within at least one nodule (seen on CXR/CT). Additionally, 17% of GPA patients w/ INFILTRATES had cavitation within an area of infiltrate.
In these GPA patients, authors note we should also consider the presence of bacterial superinfection of cavities if a compatible clinical syndrome is present, as another study found 16% of cavitary GPA patients had superinfection.
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