Cavernous Haemangioma of the Lung

Cavernous haemangiomata of the lung are rare, and a survey of the French, American, and English literature on the subject has revealed only five cases.In 1936 Bowers reported the case of a baby boy who, two days after birth, became extremely dyspnoeic and died within a few minutes.At autopsy there were many branching raised areas on the surface of both lungs.These were filled with blood and histologically proved to be angiomatous masses.Death was due to the rupture of one of these angiomata into the left pleural cavity.Further details of the autopsy were not reported, and whether or not other haemangiomata existed in this child is unknown.Rodes, in 1938, described the case of a man aged twenty-five whose symptoms had been dyspnoea and cyanosis.Clubbing of the fingers had been noted at the age of fifteen.When he was seen shortly before his death the lips were dark and purplish, with several small spots on each, resembling haemangiomata.No abnormal physical signs were detected in the heart or lungs.A blood count showed a polycythaemia, the haemoglobin content being 118 per cent and the red cell count 7,540,000 per c.mm. Radiography of the chest showed nodular opacities in the left middle zone.Five months after the patient had been first seen, he had two small haemoptyses followed by a severe pulmonary haemorrhage and died.At autopsy there were multilocular haemangiomata of both lungs, and death was due to rupture of one of these into a bronchus.Another case of haemangioma of the lung in a girl of seventeen was pub- lished by Duvoir and others in 1939.She had been observed clinically and on July 20,