Infiltration and Fat Droplet Phagocytosis by Macrophages in the Alveoli may be the Most Likely Characteristics of Fat Embolism

oleh: Bin Wang, Fu Zhang, Ning Xiao, Xiang Xu, Qi Wang, Xiao-Hui Tan, Tao Wang, Hui-Jun Wang, Dong-Ri Li

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2016-01-01

Deskripsi

We report a case of nontraumatic fat embolism syndrome with large amounts of macrophages with phagocytized fat droplets in the alveoli. A 46-year-old male presented with a glass-cut injury in his little finger. The wound was debrided and sutured at the hospital, but he was found dead 43 h after treatment. Autopsy results showed that the patient had steatohepatitis, accompanied by histological findings of fat droplets in the pulmonary capillaries. In the alveoli, we found a large number of macrophages with phagocytized fat droplets that showed stained. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of such a case, and the paper proposes that fat droplets phagocytized by a large number of macrophages may be a characteristic feature of fat embolism, which may be relevant to forensic pathology practice.