Fire Eater's Pneumonia: One of the Rare Differential Diagnoses of Pulmonary Mass Images

Accidental aspiration of liquid hydrocarbon mixture by animators who blow flame may lead to severe lipoid pneumonia.1-3 This situation that occurs due to accidental aspiration of liquid hydrocarbon mixture (gas oil, gas oil-cognac mix) during animation shows is called “Fire Eater’s Pneumonia” in the literature, which has been presented in few cases.1,2,4,5 Different consequences may occur through the high and low viscosity products.5,6 In cases reported in the literature, the main clinical symptoms are cough, dyspnea, chest pain and fever; the subjects are generally referred to the emergency room with severe dyspnea.7-10 Hereby, we introduce two cases of fire eater’s pneumonia. The first case was a 29-year-old male animator who aspirated liquid gas during his flame-blowing show in a circus. He was admitted to the emergency room with productive cough, fever and severe dyspnea. He had taken lamb oil in his mouth 18 hours ago and blew this mix to a stick in order to conduct a flame-blowing show. Immediately after the show, the cough had started. In the chest radiography, partial opacities eliminating the heart and diaphragmatic contours in bilateral lower zones were determined (Fig. 1A). Thoracic CT showed