UK Hospital Reports Nation's First Vaping-Related Lung Illness Case

On July 4, reports from foreign media indicated that one of the world's leading thoracic hospitals, the Royal Papworth Hospital, a major heart and lung transplant center in the UK, released an image showing the UK's first case of lung disease related to electronic cigarettes.
 

The image shows that the patient meets the criteria for a "confirmed" diagnosis of vaping-related lung injury (also known as EVALI).
 

 

According to the report, the patient was previously a healthy man in his forties who went to the emergency room complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath.
 

His only potential health issue was that he had undergone an appendectomy at some point before admission.
 

This unnamed man reported a history of smoking, having previously used marijuana and occasionally drank alcohol.
 

He had stopped smoking six weeks prior and had started using a menthol-flavored electronic cigarette device regularly to help him quit smoking.
 

Within hours of presentation, he required intubation and mechanical ventilation, and he continued to deteriorate over the next few hours, developing severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which required additional extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) (a machine that delivers oxygen to the body).
 

The report, published by the European Respiratory Society, further explains: "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) case definition, the patient meets the criteria for a 'confirmed' diagnosis of vaping-related lung injury (EVALI).
 

"Although his radiology highlighted some degree of pre-existing structural lung disease and retained his history of marijuana and cigarette exposure, his acute decline occurred within 90 days of exposure to electronic cigarettes, and there was no diagnosed lung infection or other possible diagnosis."
 

The patient did survive the acute illness and was sent back to his referring hospital after ECMO support was stopped.
 

Globally, there is increasing awareness of the potential harms of vaping, with case reports emerging in the medical literature.
 

The report indicates that the CDC has identified 2,807 cases of lung injury requiring hospitalization and 68 deaths associated with the use of electronic cigarette products (as of February 18, 2020).
 

According to the document: "Two-thirds of hospitalized patients are male, with an average age of 24 years.
 

"This report highlights that EVALI is not just a phenomenon in North America; although the UK and Europe can mitigate this danger through legislation that reduces the inhalation of toxic substances, the use of these devices still poses a risk of life-threatening lung injuries."