Acute eosinophilic pneumonia associated with shock

Objective: To describe an unusual case of acute eosinophilic pneumonia (AEP) associated with hemodynamic instability. Design: Case report, clinical. Settings: Tertiary care intensive care unit (ICU). Patient: A single patient admitted to the ICU. Interventions: Intravenous corticosteroids. Measurements and Main Results: Resolution of distributive shock and respiratory failure. Conclusions: AEP with respiratory failure was first reported in 1989 as a distinct clinical entity. Patients with this variant of eosinophilic lung disease develop acute hypoxemic respiratory failure with a rapid response to treatment with corticosteroids. The characteristic feature of this syndrome is a predominance of eosinophils found in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and lung biopsy. Despite the increasing number of reported cases, to our knowledge, distributive shock has not been reported as a feature of AEP. We report a unique case of AEP associated with shock and review the pertinent literature.