Pulmonary Amoebiasis

¹ Professor of Chest Diseases, University of Alexandria.

Clinically lung amoebiasis may be encountered in the following forms:

1. From perforation of an associated liver abscess across the diaphragmatic barrier. This is the most common variety.

2. From lymphatic spread across the diaphragm in which this organ remains intact, albeit raised and immobile. There is consolidation and possible consequent necrosis of lung tissue in the lobes of the right side.

3. From systematic venous dissemination causing wide-spread "cotton wool" patches of bronchopneumonia and scattered over both lung fields. The condition is probably associated with massive infection dose e.g. a polluted water supply.

4. The solitary abscess without other amoebic manifestations elsewhere in other organs. The therapeutic test provides the only questionable evidence for its etiology.

The combined treatment of aureomycin, emetine and chloroquine affords the speediest cure so far achieved in the treatment of lung and liver amoebiasis.