A 66-year-old woman was taking drugs meant to calm an overactive immune reaction in her lungs, but her lung disease was not getting better. The likely reason turned out to be inside her home: an indoor hot tub she used every day.
The case, published Sept. 15 in Respirology Case Reports, describes a patient first diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis, an inflammatory lung condition triggered by inhaled substances. Only after a lung biopsy and a closer look at her daily habits did doctors identify the probable culprit, Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), a group of environmental bacteria that thrive in warm water.
