Infectious Disease Experts Discuss Misdiagnosed Lung Infection

Case Overview

This case involves a middle-aged male patient who underwent a routine chest x-ray that revealed an area of density in his lung. Subsequently, a cat scan was performed, which revealed a concerning lesion that doctors recommended be tested for malignancy. The patient was advised to undergo a biopsy, which did not detect malignancy, however the sample did contain a number of white blood cells. The patient shared that he had recently moved from an area of the country in which a certain kind of lung infection is known to exist, however this was not taken into consideration. Eventually, after some additional testing, the patient underwent a lobectomy as well as the removal of several lymph nodes. It was at this point that the mass was revealed to be an infection rather than a cancerous mass.

Questions to the Infectious Disease and Communicable Disease expert and their responses

Do you routinely treat patients like the one described above?

I routinely treat patients like the one described.

Do you have familiarity with the subject matter described above?

My field of clinical and research expertise is invasive fungal disease.

Have you ever published or lectured on this subject / issue?

I have published and lecture on the matter.

Is it possible that if a lung nodule containing this infection is present in a patient, the symptoms will usually fully resolve after a course of the appropriate medication?

Treatment likely would not have changed the size or presence of the nodule within days or even a couple of weeks - when we re-scan these patients, we often find the nodule lingers for several months into therapy, often even longer.

About the expert

This extremely qualified expert earned her MD from the prestigious Harvard Medical School, she went on to complete a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital. This expert is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine on Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine. She is a member of prestigious societies such as the American Society for Microbiology, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology. She has been the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Fellow Teaching Award in Infectious Diseases from Harvard University and the Clinical Infectious Diseases Top Paper Award, Best Original Clinical Research from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. This expert has been widely published. She is a former Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is currently an Assistant Proffesor at an Ivy league medical school. She serves as Staff Physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases at a university affiliated medical center.