A Rare Case of Non-resolving Pneumonia: Lipoid Pneumonia

Abstract

Lipoid pneumonia (LP) is defined as the sum of clinical and radiological abnormalities due to aspiration of oil based foreign materials. There are two kinds of LP defined in the literature. Exogenous LP is associated with aspiration of oily materials into the airways and the lung parenchyma consciously or accidentally as in fire-eater’s lung. Endogenous LP is a more complicated situation that occurs when an endogenous lipoid material fills the alveolar space without a history of aspiration. It is associated with certain conditions like bacterial pneumonia. The pathogenesis is similar to alveolar proteinosis. We report a case of non-resolving pneumonia finally diagnosed as exogenous LP caused by aspiration of a liquid laxative.

Keywords

• non-resolving pneumonia
• lipoid pneumonia
• aspiration
• laxatives