• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.48-51
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• 2008

Chronic expanding hematoma of the thorax is a specific subtype of the chronic empyema. It presents as a slowly expanding intrathoracic mass which result in dyspnea or recurrent hemoptysis. The symptoms develop months or years after tuberculous pleurisy, trauma or surgery. Usually, it shows three common findings: a giant mass lesion in the thorax, some surrounding calcifications, the absence of signs or symptoms of infection. We report a case of chronic expanding hematoma of the thorax, initially presenting as massive hemoptysis through bronchopleural fistula which resulted in radiologic findings of new air-fluid level within the previous pleural lesion filled with unknown materials.