A clinical case of pulmonary and hepatic echinococcosis

The article presents а description of our personal case of pulmonary and hepatic echinococcosis in a 38-years-old patient. Literature data on clinical presentation, laboratory and instrumental diagnostic methods of the disease are presented. Different variants of clinical presentation of pulmonary echinococcosis and its possible complications are described. The problems of differential diagnosis, surgical and conventional methods of treatment are analyzed. The presented clinical case confirms the wide spread opinion that the diagnosis of pulmonary echinococcosis based on only the results of chest X-ray is extremely challenging. Frequent diagnostic mistakes are associated with the primary diagnosis of pneumonia based on chest X-ray. Use of high-pitch spiral computed tomography implemented recently into clinical practice provides early differential diagnosis of pulmonary lesions with parasitic diseases, in particular, with echinococcosis. The final diagnosis is confirmed by serologic methods of echinococcosis diagnosis with the use of enzyme immunoassays.