A CLINICAL CASE OF ACUTE DIFFUSE LUNG INJURY IN A TEENAGE VAPER

Abstract

Recently, there have been increasing reports of acute diff use lung injury in adolescents and young adults caused by the use of electronic cigarettes or vapes (EVALI), requiring a complex diff erential diagnosis between infectious (acute bilateral pneumonia), systemic, and interstitial lung diseases. The article presents a rare clinical case of development of sarcoidosis in a teenage vaper, which was established on the basis of clinical and anamnestic data (acute onset of the disease with fever, dry cough, dyspnea, chest pain, hypoxemia, papular rash on the extremities at the beginning of the disease); inconsistencies of the meager auscultatory picture of the lungs during the physical examination of a diff use lung lesion with an increase in intrathoracic lymph nodes and signs of calcinosis according to the x-ray and CT scan of the thoracic cavity; ineff ectiveness of antibacterial therapy with the exclusion of pulmonary tuberculosis and the disappearance of radiological pathological signs without treatment within 2 weeks, but with the girl’s refusal to smoke. Given the rapidly increasing popularity of vaping among adolescents, family physicians and pulmonologists should be particularly vigilant for severe and potentially fatal respiratory pathology. The clinical case is published with the consent of the parents in accordance with the principles of bioethics.