Medicalcortexover 5 years ago

Giant Blood Clot

Coughing up blood is an alarming symptom, but it's not particularly rare. Even so, one man in California shocked his doctors when he coughed up an unusual-looking blood clot: It was in the shape of his lung. The 36-year-old man was being treated for a serious heart condition, according to a new report of the case, published Nov. 29 in The New England Journal of Medicine. He had chronic heart failure, which means the heart muscle can't pump enough blood to meet the body's normal demands. His condition was so severe that doctors put him on a machine called a ventricular assist device, which helps the heart pump blood. Because these machines can also increase the risk of blood clots, he was prescribed a blood-thinner medication. However, these medications also increase the risk of bleeding, including coughing up blood. Indeed, the patient had several coughing episodes in which he expelled small amounts of blood, according to the report. But then, during an "extreme bout of coughing," the patient spit out an "intact cast" of the right bronchial tree. In other words, it was a mold (cast) made of clotted blood in the shape of the lung's branched airway passages known as bronchi.