Pulmonary Nocardiosis: Reports Of 4 Cases And Review Of The Literature Analyzing The Imaging Changes

Objective:To investigate the clinical manifestations, diagnosis and therapy, especially the imaging changes in lungs.Methods:The clinical and radiological date of 4 cases of pulmonary nocardiosis in the hospital were presented, and 30 cases reported in the Chinese literature since 2001 were reviewed.Results:Among the 34 cases of Nocardio infections in the lung, chest X-ray or CT imaging of the lungs showed alveolar infiltrates in 22 patients, accounting for 64.7 percent, cavities in 18(52.9 percent), nodular or massive lesions in 14(44.1 percent), and limited to the unilateral lung in 14 patients(41.1 percent). There was no significant difference between immunocompromised and immunocompetent patients(χ2=9.71, p> 0.05),but cavitation had a significant difference between them (p=0.038).Conclusions:Nocardiosis is a common opportunistic infection in many immunocompromised conditions, the most common pulmonary radiological abnormalities are alveolar infiltrate, cavity, nodus or mass and lesions limited to unilateral lung. Besides, radiological differentiation between immunocompromised and immunocompetent patients in total can't be made, but cavitation seemed to be more easily seen in the former.