Pulmonary blebs and bullae in alcoholics: a possible alcoholic-specific lung phenomenon.

Chest x-ray films of 200 unselected severely alcoholic patients were studied in a search for a possible alcohol-lung syndrome. Fourteen instances of pulmonary blebs and bullae were encountered, an incidence substantially higher than usual. Functional airway obstruction has been previously identified in the lungs of alcoholics, and the present findings might be a radiologic manifestation of the same process. While the pathogenesis of blebs and bullae is uncertain, the phenomena should be included in the spectrum of respiratory pathology encountered on chest films of alcoholic patients.