2022 Volume 6 Issue 10 Article ID: e00158
A 59-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital for an investigation of the cause of her persistent right pleural effusion. Before admission, she had complained of fatigue and chest pain during breathing, and chest X-ray radiography had shown right pleural effusion. She was diagnosed with pleurisy and received a course of antibiotics. Her right pleural effusion worsened although her complaints were improved after treatment. Chest computed tomography showed right pleural effusion and a pulmonary infiltrative shadow at the right middle lobe, which had been previously diagnosed as cryptogenic organizing pneumonia. We could not obtain any valid information on the cause of the sustained pleural effusion from imaging studies. Analyses of her pleural effusion did not provide conclusive data; therefore, we performed thoracoscopic pleural biopsy under local anesthesia. The histopathological examination of the specimens revealed the bug eggs of lung fluke, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays confirmed the diagnosis of Paragonimus westermani.
