1994 Volume 16 Issue 6 Pages 587-590
A 48 year-old housewife visited another hospital, complaining of coughing and hoarseness. At the age of 20, she had suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis and received chemotherapy for three years. Subsequently she was asymptomatic for about 25 years. She visited our hospital about seven months after the occurence of the symptoms. Soon after, she started coughing up horseshoe shaped white pieces of tissue and mycobacterium tuberculosis was revealed in her sputum. Bronchoscopy examination showed a marked narrowing of the left main bronchus and small, white, protrusions from the tracheal membrane. A horse-shoe shaped white piece of tissue, which she expectorated immediately before bronchoscopy, was shown pathologically to be bronchial cartilage. The anti-tuberculous treatment caused further narrowing of the left main bronchus, necessitating broncho plasty. This is a rare case of bronchial tuberculosis presenting with expectoration of horse-shoe shaped bronchial cartilage.