You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case report
Diffuse alveolar haemorrhage: a rare complication of clopidogrel use
  1. Rachelle Soriano1,
  2. Saud Al-Rawaf2 and
  3. Khalil Diab2
  1. 1The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  2. 2Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Khalil Diab; kdiab{at}mfa.gwu.edu

Abstract

Diffuse alveolar haemorrhage (DAH) has been reported as a rare complication of clopidogrel use and is usually a diagnosis of exclusion. We describe the case of an 88-year-old Native American woman who presented with acute hypoxic respiratory failure with CT scan of the chest showing diffuse bilateral ground-glass opacities. She had been on clopidogrel for 6 months for a carotid artery stent. Bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage and transbronchial biopsies revealed DAH. Infectious and autoimmune work-up were all negative. Clopidogrel was stopped and high-dose steroids were started. Her symptoms gradually improved until she was discharged from the hospital. The differential DAH is broad. Anticoagulant-induced DAH should be part of the differential diagnosis, and is usually a diagnosis of exclusion.

  • drugs: respiratory system
  • interstitial lung disease
  • vasculitis
  • adult intensive care

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2021-244314

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @alrawafs, @khalildiab15

    • Contributors RS wrote the paper and took care of the patient as a medical student. KD was the supervising faculty on the wards and reviewed and corrected the paper. SA-R was the fellow on service and also helped with review of the paper.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.