Pulmonologists at Kamineni Hospital have given a new lease of life to 31-year-old Gautam Kr Shaw, an employee of DRDO, who was admitted to the hospital with complaints of coughing out of blood. Shaw, a resident of West Bengal, was on Independence Day security arrangements duty at Red Fort, where the Prime Minister was addressing the gathering, when he had sudden bout of coughing blood. He was immediately rushed to a premier hospital in New Delhi, where inspite of work up the diagnosis could not be made and the patient was not relived of the symptom.

In view of the faith on the consultant pulmonologist Dr E Ravindra Reddy offering professional service at kamineni hospital, he decided to immediately travel by airline and during his travel he was coughing out blood in the flight. Dr Ravindra Reddy made a detailed evaluation which revealed that the patient suffered with chest wall tuberculosis 18 years ago and took adequate treatment. He also suffered with COVID-19 a year ago. CT scan of the chest did not reveal a reason for the cause of haemoptysis. ENT and Gastroenterology evaluation did not give a clue to the focus of the bleeding. In view of some of the case reports of AV malformations in the post COVID-19 phase, CT Aortogram was done, which too came out negative. Collagen vascular disease profile, PANCA, C-ANCA, were also sent to rule out vasculitis as a cause of the patients symptom. To the utter dismay these investigations did not give a lead. Flexible video bronchoscopy was done to see the site of the bleeding which showed active bleeding from the right middle lobe and right lower lobe segments. Bronchial lavage was inconclusive. The patient continued to cough out blood and a working diagnosis of Endobronchial tuberculosis was made, which is a rare form of pulmonary tuberculosis. In view of Shaw being a high-profile patient, requests came in from various scientists of DRDO to shift the patient to some other hospital for further assessment and treatment.

“The treating pulmonologist took the decision of repeating the bronchoscopy and wedged the scope into the right middle and lower lobe segmental bronchi and did broncho alveolar lavage with an intention of picking up the problem from the periphery of the lung and send the sample for Ultra cartridge based nucliec acid amplification test which was positive. Patient could be prevented from subjecting to more invasive procedures like Cryoprobe biopsy and navigational bronchoscopy. The patient was started on anti-tubercular therapy. Subsequently, the patient stopped coughing up blood, his appetite improved and put on weight, was very grateful for the efforts made to diagnose his health problem. The patience, persistence, and perseverance of the doctor and the faith showed by the patient in the process eventually paid off. The patient is now on follow-up and doing well,” said Dr E Ravindra Reddy, Senior. Consultant Pulmonologist, Kamineni Hospitals, LB Nagar, Hyderabad.