Today’s case is a 7 year old domestic shorthair cat with chronic cough.
Case originally posted on December 27, 2007
7 year old DSH cat
Teaching and learning about veterinary diagnostic imaging.
On lateral view, the tracheal lumen is narrowed at the thoracic inlet. There is a stripe sign dorsal to tne trachea which is normal. The pleural fissure is visible between the left caudal semgment of the cranial lung lobe and the left caudal lung lobe without pleural effusion. Ill-defined soft tissue opacity obscuring the aortic arch is consistent with alveolar lung pattern at cranioventral lung lobe with lobar sign on left lateral view. The multiple doughnut signs are visible on the caudodorsal vetntral lung field with interstitial lung patter. The whole cardiac silhouette lies down above the sternum which is a normal senile change. Distented large intestine with feces in the cranio-dorsal abdomen are visible. The rest of the thoracic structures including pulmonary vessels, medaistinum, pleural space and diaphragm seems normal.
On the CT images, the right main stem bronchus dilated in periphery in comparison with the opposite side. The conccurent alveolar pattern in X-ray is also confirmed around the heart.
Findings
Narrowed Tracheal Lumen, Untapered main stem bronchus with diffuse mixed lung patterns.
DDX – Feline asthma or Chronic bronchitis with bronchiectasis.
Lung pattern – secondary pneumonia, non-cardiogenic edema less likely.
BAL or TTW should be done to identify infectious agent.
Lovely case I can check out all the lung patterns with many signs.
Question, how one can know the right middle lung lobar sign is collapsed or cosolidated? As I see, there is no mediastianl shift, Is it because of slight inflation of the caudal lung margin toward middle lung lobe on the left lateral projection?