Acute Respiratory Failure

[kaljian]

Is it possible for a goiter to restrict the airway enough to cause acute respiratory failure in a patient that already has IPF?

[kaljian]

Well, this is where it gets a bit complicated. She wound up in the hospital last month with trouble breathing. It got so bad that she wound up on a ventilator. After she got off the vent, the attending doctor ordered a CT scan to look for a pulmonary embolism. He didn't find one, but... he did discover (by accident) that she had a multinodular goiter and she was scheduled to have a biopsy next month, after she recovered.

Problem is, she began having trouble breathing again before the biopsy could be done. She wound up on a ventilator again. I don't think her current attending doctor even knows about the goiter.

[laura1967]

My great grandmother died from her goiter...it ended up completely restricting her airway. She wouldn't go in for it to be removed....stubborn dutch woman. But it was yrs ago and drs and hospitals were diff back then in a small country town.
What are her doctors saying?

[kaljian]

IPF is Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. The reason I ask is that my mom has both, and has wound up on a ventilator twice, now.

[ChitChatNine]

I'm not sure what IPF is.  Welcome to the patient communty.  It's my understanding that a goiter can press on the airway and constrict it .. probably in serious situations the outcome can be equally as serious is my two cents.  But I am not a doctor.

C~