Headcheese Sign, a common pattern associated with several pathological entities

Headcheese sign refers to a radiological pattern in a chest CT scan that can be associated with several pathological entities, from different etiology such as an infection, an immune response or drugs. The name comes from the juxtaposition of 3 different densities with well-defined margination of hazy ground-glass opacity that looks like a “paté”.

The image that is exposed belongs to a patient with COPD criteria, with an acute onset of fever, hypoxemia and dyspnea, after recovering from neutropenia. Several etiologies can be associated with this radiological pattern, from infection to an immune response or drugs.

In this case the doctor´s clinical reasoning must select the most plausible etiology to decide the proper treatment. Occasionally, if the evolution of the patient is not favorable, bronchoscopy must be considered to get a sample for cytology and microbiology.

More details about this sign can be found here