BACKGROUND Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is an extremely rare lung disease in animals and humans. It is characterized by the deposition of a large amount of phospholipoproteinaceous material in the alveoli. There are several possible etiologies, both congenital and acquired. Alveolar macrophages play an important role in the clearance of surfactant. This is the first report of pulmonary alveol...

Aim: To present clinico-pathological findings in a case of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis complicated by fungal infection. Case Report: A 48-year-old female presented with progressively increasing exertional breathlessness for the past 6 months. On imaging she showed extensive air space filling with crazy paving pattern in the left lung with multiple nodular lesions in the right lung and mild b...

INTRODUCTION Diffuse lung infiltrates are a common finding in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and causes range from infectious processes to malignancies or interstitial lung diseases. Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is a rare pulmonary disorder rarely reported in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus. Secondary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is associated with cond...

To investigate the function of alveolar macrophages (AM) and the mechanisms of impairment in pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, we established in culture AM from three patients and from eight normal nonsmokers and assessed phagocytosis and phagolysosome fusion by the acridine orange assay with live yeast as the phagocytic challenge. Alveolar macrophages from the patients with pulmonary alveolar pr...

A raised serum level of KL-6 is known to exist in active pulmonary fibrosis and KL-6 may be produced and secreted by type II pneumocytes. A case is described of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis with high serum KL-6 levels. The serum KL-6 level decreased after whole lung washing and correlated with symptoms, opacities on the chest radiograph, and arterial blood gas measurements. The serum KL-6 lev...

A raised serum level of KL-6 is known to exist in active pulmonary fibrosis and KL-6 may be produced and secreted by type II pneumocytes. A case is described of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis with high serum KL-6 levels. The serum KL-6 level decreased after whole lung washing and correlated with symptoms, opacities on the chest radiograph, and arterial blood gas measurements. The serum KL-6 lev...

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is a rare disease of the lung in which excessive thick granular phospholipoproteinaceous material accumulates within the air spaces. Many patients with this disease suffer from progressive dyspnea and cough that at times is accompanied by worsening hypoxia. At present, the only effective treatment is bronchoalveolar lavage, first described by Ramirez in 1963 (1). ...

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis is characterized by excessive accumulation of surfactant-like material in the alveoli, resulting in part from defective alveolar clearance by macrophages. We present a case of alveolar proteinosis in a patient with malignant melanoma metastatic to lung and discuss possible alteration in macrophage function in the pathogenesis of these two concomitant processes.