Ectopic right upper lobe bronchus as a cause of breathlessness.

Patients with upper airways obstruction may present with symptoms suggestive of asthma. An extrathoracic obstruction is usually made obvious by the presence of inspiratory stridor, but diagnostic difficulty may arise if the obstruction is longstanding or is intrathoracic. Additional clues may in- clude failure ofconventional treatment for asthma and char-acteristic abnormalities of pulmonary function. We report on a patient with noisy breathing from birth whose upper airways obstruction was not diagnosed until she was 13.