Bronchoalveolar disease in dyskeratosis congenita.

Dyskeratosis congenita (DC) is an unusual familial disorder primarily affecting the skin and its appendages. We report the case of a DC patient with chronic respiratory tract involvement, confirming the features previously reported by a small number of authors: 1) chronic bronchoalveolar involvement is not unusual in this disorder; 2) the main features are early sputum production with subsequent bronchial and alveolar destruction; 3) after onset of dyspnoea the course is rapidly fatal, with progressive respiratory failure. Immune deficiency and repeated bronchoalveolar infections may be involved in the pathogenesis of these manifestations.