[A medical "odyssey" in a congenital unilateral diaphragm defect].

This is a case-report of an undiagnosed congenital defect (aplasia?) of the left diaphragm in a female adult, now aged 43 years. The woman was falsely diagnosed since her youth for cavernous tuberculosis and sent to a tuberculosis hospital for 17 months. Later on, the patient was thought to have a "tear" in the left lung (!) and treated for 9 months as an in-patient. Because of these wrong diagnoses dangerous therapeutic measures were performed. The retrospection this course seems to be rather unbelievable, however it should induce diagnosticians to serious reflections.