CASE REPORT article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Thoracic Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1572523
Airway Leech Infestation Masquerading as a Tumor: a rare case report
Provisionally accepted
- Yunnan Cancer Hospital, Kunming, China
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Airway obstruction is a ventilatory dysfunction caused by internal and external diseases of the respiratory tract, which is usually considered a life-threatening clinical emergency. Traditionally, airway obstruction can be caused by respiratory tumors, trauma, and foreign bodies, among which tumors are the most common. Consequently, physicians may prioritize tumor-related diagnoses, potentially leading to the misdiagnosis of rare non-neoplastic conditions. Here, we report a case of a 61-year-old adult traveler who initially presented with mild dyspnea and a bronchial occupying lesion on a CT scan, raising suspicion of an airway tumor. However, further examination confirmed the diagnosis of a living leech infestation in the bronchus, resulting from a trip to Laos. This case highlights the importance of thorough history-taking and critical thinking in clinical diagnosis, urging physicians to avoid overreliance on intuition or experience alone.
Keywords: leech infestation, Respiratory tumor, airway, thoracic, case report
Received: 07 Feb 2025; Accepted: 15 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Chen, Chen, Huang, Tan and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiangxiu Tan, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, Kunming, China
Ying Chen, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, Kunming, China
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