A Case of Acute Respiratory Failure Presenting Lobar Consolidation

Pulmonary embolism is one of the moot common acute pulmonary disease in the adult general hospital population However, the disease is still frequently unsuspected and underdiagnosed due to the nonspecificity of both clinical findings and laboratory tests. The chest radiography in a patient suspected acute pulmonary embolism do not provide adequate information to establish or exclude the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. Even in the case of infarction, there is no pathognomonic clues on the chest film. Rarely infarction presents unusual roentgenologic manifestation such as lobar consolidation, coin lesion, multinodular opacity, or massive pleural effusion Especially, lobar consolidation in pulmonary embolism might mislead into the diagnosis of pneumonia. We experienced a case of pulmonary embolism presenting lobar consolidation in a 62 years old woman, originated from deep vein thrombosis. She took a compression stocking and underwent anticoagulant therapy with excellent outcome.