Coughing and chest tightness should be beware of possible tuberculosis in the endothelium

  Many people may not take the symptoms of chest tightness, shortness of breath, or cough seriously if they usually occur. We always encounter a few such patients throughout the year, who have repeated coughs that are sometimes light and sometimes heavy, and gradually develop shortness of breath after activity and wheezing in severe cases, and have been treated as a cold, bronchitis or asthma. Endobronchial tuberculosis is mostly seen in young women, and patients often do not feel obvious symptoms of tuberculosis poisoning such as low fever in the afternoon or evening, night sweats, fatigue, etc. The main manifestation is a prolonged cough of varying degrees, which is easily misdiagnosed and mistreated. Endobronchial tuberculosis lesions occur in the bronchial lumen and can also be secondary to pulmonary tuberculosis, which may not be detected on early chest radiographs. In most patients, the disease is not mild at the time of bronchoscopy, and the deep bronchi are blocked by cheese-like necrotic material, causing pulmonary atelectasis, which leads to chest tightness and shortness of breath, etc. If the disease continues to expand, it will cause repeated infections in the distal bronchi, leading to lung destruction and eventually lobe resection. At present, bronchoscopic treatment can improve the condition, mainly by microscopic clamping of necrotic tissues to clean them up, and then placing the bronchial balloon into the patient’s airway stenosis through the fibrinoscope, slowly filling the water balloon and expanding the balloon to 6-12mm, which holds up the trachea like a stent, gradually propping up the stenosis and enlarging it, so that the obstruction continues to open. Local drug delivery is performed while unblocking the bronchus to increase the concentration of drugs at the lesion and improve the bactericidal effect. After 4-5 times of repeated balloon dilatation with regular anti-tuberculosis and other adjuvant treatments such as nebulization, the patient’s intrabronchial lesions were gradually absorbed, and not only did the symptoms of coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and chest tightness caused by tracheal stenosis disappear, but also prevented the lung lobes from being removed.