A CT scan of the thorax was ordered to help determine whether a recurrent pulmonary embolism may have contributed to a 54-year-old man's arrhythmia. He also had a history of giant bullous emphysema, or “vanishing lung syndrome,” a rare condition caused by paraseptal emphysematous bullae that coalesce and eventually compress the lung parenchyma. The bullae can be mistaken for a pneumothorax on a standard chest film.
Image courtesy of Mark Masciocchi, MD, Shashank Jain, MD, and Anthony Donato, MD.
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