INTRODUCTION
Chest tightness, cough and fever are common symptoms of many diseases. Many patients with these chief complaints are examined in medical facilities, and although bronchitis, bronchial asthma, cough-variant asthma, or reflux esophagitis is often diagnosed, a lack of diagnosis is common. We suggest that these patients often have inflammation of the trachea and main bronchi.
Chest computed tomography (CT) is very useful in the detection of chest diseases in patients presenting with chest symptoms or fever. Central airway abnormalities such as wall thickening are also easy to detect by chest CT [1,2]. Characteristic central airway wall thickening is typically observed in central airway amyloidosis, relapsing polychondritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and adenoid cystic carcinoma, among other diseases [1,2].
Here, we present three patients with cough, chest tightness or fever exhibiting inflammation of the trachea and main bronchi with diffuse wall thickening and without abnormalities in other organs. The patients were diagnosed with the aid of chest CT and bronchoscopy.