MediAI

Clinical Hook A 55-year-old woman presents to the emergency department with persistent cough, fever, and dyspnea several weeks after treatment for breast cancer. At first glance, the clinical presentation may suggest ordinary pneumonia. But the chest CT tells a different story. Instead of a random or bronchocentric pulmonary opacity, the abnormality is concentrated in the portion of the right lung corresponding to the radiation treatment field, with ground-glass opacity, interstitial change, architectural distortion, and localized volume loss. This is the imaging pattern that should immediately raise the possibility of radiation pneumonitis . The case provided for this review describes a 55-year-old woman with invasive ductal carcinoma of the right breast who underwent breast-conserving surgery, regional radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Four weeks after treatment, she developed persistent cough, fever, and dyspnea. CT demonstrated abnormalities in the right upper lung corresponding to t...

Lipoid Pneumonia: The Lung Mass That Mimics Cancer on CT Introduction Among the many challenges in thoracic imaging, few are more concerning than a pulmonary lesion that resembles lung cancer. A mass-like opacity discovered incidentally on chest CT often initiates a cascade of follow-up imaging, PET/CT examinations, biopsies, and patient anxiety. However, not every lung mass is malignant. One of the most fascinating examples is lipoid pneumonia , a rare condition caused by the accumulation of lipids within the pulmonary parenchyma. Although uncommon, it represents a critical diagnosis because recognition of characteristic imaging findings can prevent unnecessary invasive procedures. In the era of artificial intelligence, advanced image analysis tools increasingly assist radiologists in detecting pulmonary abnormalities. Yet even sophisticated AI algorithms may struggle when encountering rare entities such as lipoid pneumonia unless specifically trained on such cases. This case illustra...