[Acute chest syndrome during sickle cell disease: unusual etiology. Apropos of 3 cases with review of the literature].

The Acute Chest Syndrome is a frequent complication of sickle cell disease characterised by chest pain, fever and new infiltrate on chest X ray image. Early diagnosis and treatment are needed for Acute Chest Syndrome, which the aetiology remains unknown on more than half of cases. We report 3 cases of Acute Chest Syndrome with different aetiology due to a fat embolism in the first case, a pleuro-pneumonia infection in the second case and to tuberculosis in the third case. This report illustrates the importance of the bronchoscopy and the brochoalveolar lavage in the determination of the aetiology of Acute Chest Syndrome allowing to isolate microbial agents in pulmonary infections or fatty macrophages in fat embolism.