Acute lung injury after bee sting acupuncture

Won Young Chae; Sang-Hoon Kim; Yung-Hee Lee; Byoung-Hoon Lee; Jae-Hyung Lee; Jeong Joo Woo

doi:10.4168/aard.2015.3.2.151

Journal List > Allergy Asthma Respir Dis > v.3(2) > 1059088

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Chae, Kim, Lee, Lee, Lee, and Woo: Acute lung injury after bee sting acupuncture

Case Report

Allergy, Asthma & Respiratory Disease 2015; 3(2): 151-154.

Published online: 24 March 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4168/aard.2015.3.2.151

Acute lung injury after bee sting acupuncture

Won Young Chae¹, Sang-Hoon Kim^1,², Yung-Hee Lee¹, Byoung-Hoon Lee^1,², Jae-Hyung Lee^1,², Jeong Joo Woo³

¹Department of Internal Medicine, Eulji General Hospital, Seoul, Korea.

²Department of Internal Medicine, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea.

³Department of Radiology, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea.

Correspondence to: Sang-Hoon Kim. Department of Internal Medicine, Eulji General Hospital, 68 Hangeulbiseok-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-711, Korea. Tel: +82-2-970-8365, Fax: +82-2-970-8621, ksh1134@eulji.ac.kr

Received 20 March 2014 Revised 7 December 2014 Accepted 3 February 2015

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/).

Abstract

Bee stings can cause severe adverse reactions. There have been no cases of acute lung injury induced by bee sting acupuncture. We report a case of a 52-year-old male who required high flow oxygen therapy because of acute lung injury by bee sting acupuncture. The patient had been treated with live bee sting acupuncture by himself for knee pain. After self-injections of live bee sting, he immediately presented with generalized urticaria that remitted within 3 hours after taking an oral antihistamine. Ten days later, he visited our emergency department due to dyspnea and dizziness. He was diagnosed with acute lung injury by bee sting acupuncture based upon a history of symptom onset after exposure to the allergen and clinical test results. This case emphasizes that practitioners should consider potential risks of delayed-onset adverse reactions induced by bee sting acupuncture.

Keywords: Bee venoms, Acupuncture, Acute lung injury, Adverse effects

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

(A) Initial chest radiograph shows bilateral ground glass opacities in both upper lung fields. (B) Six days later, the bilateral ground glass opacities have worsened involving whole lung fields.

Fig. 2

(A) Coronal reformatted computed tomography image obtained five days after the initial chest radiograph. Diffuse ground glass opacities with intralobular interstitial thickening and consolidation containing dilated bronchi in both lower lung fields are observed. Peripheral cystic change is also seen. There is no pleural effusion. (B) Three weeks later, bilateral diffuse ground-glass and coarse reticular opacities in both lung fields is improved.

Notes

This work was supported by Eulji University in 2012 (EJRG-12-018-042G21).

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