[An adult patient with varicella-zoster pneumonia while under inhaled steroid treatment].

Bronchial asthma had been diagnosed in a 33-year-old man, and he had then been treated with a moderate dose of inhaled steroids (fluticason propionate 400 micrograms/day). On year later, he was admitted to our hospital complaining of sore throat, fever, loss of appetite, and skin eruptions. Despite the administration of Acyclovir for three days, varicella pneumonia was diagnosed. Computed tomography of the chest and bronchoscopic examination revealed characteristic findings: nodules with surrounding ground-glass attenuation and multiple vesicles with an ulcerativelesion on the bronchial mucosa, respectively. The demonstration of varicella-zoster virus DNA in a bronchoalveolar lavage specimen by the polymerase chain reaction technique was useful in the formulation of a definitive diagnosis.