Adult Plastic Bronchitis: A Rare Cause for Chronic Productive Cough

Abstract

Plastic bronchitis is a rare disease with serious morbidity. We report a case of a 48-year-old male smoker with a past medical history of diabetes, emphysema, recurrent respiratory infections, a worsening productive cough, and increased oxygen requirement over the past 3 months. Often described in the pediatric population, it is important to maintain plastic bronchitis in the differential when considering unresolving pulmonary conditions with chronic sputum production. Lipid infiltration on histology is diagnostic and often requires surgical biopsy for adequate tissue analysis. A lymphangiogram can be both confirmatory and therapeutic depending on the institutional availability of image-guided selective lymphatic embolization.