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.