Diagnosing Caplan syndrome in a patient with silicosis and rheumatoid arthritis: imaging shows miliary pattern and cavity lung lesions

A 41-year-old man presented to our rheumatology clinic with a 2-month history of symmetric inflammatory polyarthralgia and pleuritic chest pain. 1 year before, he had visited another hospital reporting a dry cough; 2 months later he returned to the same institution complaining of breathlessness and fatigue; at that time, pulmonary tuberculosis and heart failure had been ruled out.