Case report: Transfusion related acute lung injury presenting with acute dyspnoea | Journal of Medical Case Reports BioMed Central Open Access Case report Transfusion related acute lung injury presenting with acute dyspnoea a case report Altaf Gauhar Haji 1 Shekhar Sharma1 DK Vijaykumar1 and Jerry Paul2 Address Department of Surgical Oncology Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences Research Center Ernakulam 682026 Kerala India and 2Department of Anaesthesia Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences Research Center Ernakulam 682026 Kerala India Email Altaf Gauhar Haji - altafhaji786@ Shekhar Sharma - drshekharsharma@ DK Vijaykumar - dkvijaykumar@ Jerry Paul - drjerrypaul@ Corresponding author Published 28 October 2008 Received 26 January 2008 Journal of Medical Case Reports 2008 2 336 doi 1752-1947-2-336 Accepted 28 October 2008 This article is available from http content 2 1 336 2008 Haji et al licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Introduction Transfusion-related acute lung injury is emerging as a common cause of transfusion-related adverse events. However awareness about this entity in the medical fraternity is low and it consequently remains a very under-reported and often an under-diagnosed complication of transfusion therapy. Case presentation We report a case of a 46-year old woman who developed acute respiratory and hemodynamic instability following a single unit blood transfusion in the postoperative period. Investigation results were non-specific and a diagnosis of transfusion-related acute lung injury was made after excluding other possible causes of acute lung injury. She responded to symptomatic management with ventilatory and vasopressor support and recovered completely over the next 72 hours. Conclusion .
