Successful treatment of a recurrent granulation polyp in the airways with high-dose-rate brachytherapy: a case report

BACKGROUND

Benign central airway tumors are very rare diseases. Their unspecific symptoms are responsible for late diagnosis. Endoscopic interventions with different techniques and tools are widely used for their treatment. However, in certain cases interventional endoscopy might be unsuccessful and therefore other methods such as high-dose-rate brachytherapy could be a therapeutic option.

CASE PRESENTATION

A 76-year-old white German woman was referred to our clinic for an endoscopic treatment of a recurrent granulation polyp in her left main bronchus. She had dyspnea, coughing, and mucus retention. Three times resections via bronchoscopy were performed within less than a year. After each intervention the polyp regrew inside her left main bronchus causing a repeat of the initial symptoms. She presented to our clinic less than 1 month since the last intervention. Twice we performed a rigid bronchoscopy in total anesthesia where we resected the granulation polyp with a snare wire loop and did an argon plasma coagulation of its base. Due to the recurrent growing of the granuloma, we performed a high-dose-rate brachytherapy in conscious sedation after another interventional bronchoscopy with a resection of the polyp and argon plasma coagulation of the base. Three months after brachytherapy our patient came to our clinic for a follow-up with none of the initial symptoms. Only a small remnant of the polyp without a significant occlusion of her bronchus was visualized by bronchoscopy. Furthermore, 6 months after brachytherapy she was not presenting any of the initial symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

This case report shows that high-dose-rate brachytherapy is a therapeutic option for the treatment of benign airway stenosis when other interventional treatments are not or are less than successful. However, further investigations are needed to prove the effectiveness and reliability of the method.

Endoscopic management of a rare granulation polyp in a colonic diverticulum

There are many case reports on colon diverticula that cause irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, bleeding, diverticulitis, stricture due to multiple recurrences of diverticulitis, and perforation. However, few articles have examined neoplasms that arise from a diverticulum, such as adenoma and adenocarcinoma, and there have been no reports of granulation polyps that arise from a colon diverticulum after recurrent diverticulitis. We observed a rare granulation polyp that arose from a diverticulum as a result of repeated episodes of local diverticulitis. Narrow band imaging magnified colonoscopy was very useful to diagnose the polyp as a granulation polyp because of the absence of a pit pattern on the surface of the polyp. We successfully resected the polyp using endoscopic mucosal resection. We inverted the diverticulum, and the resected stalk of the polyp was used to close the diverticulum with an over-the-scope clip. If a granulomatous polyp could arise from a diverticulum, differential diagnosis between a colon neoplasm and a granulomatous polyp would not only be difficult but also necessary for suitable endoscopic treatment.