The Guangzhou Children's Hospital says that it has treated another case of a rare pediatric respiratory ailment, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday.

On March 27, a 22-month-old baby was admitted to the hospital with breathing problems. Treating physicians found a large amount of white, fibrous material resembling plastic inside the child's windpipe and surgically removed it.

The doctors could find no associated virus or bacteria.

The hospital said that it has seen 10 patients with the disease since 2002, and that two children had died from it.

Doctors said they know of no effective treatment for the mysterious ailment other than surgery.

The hospital said it was unaware of any reports of the disease elsewhere in China. Doctors believe that similar cases have been reported in other countries since the early 1900s, but it has not been assigned a proper medical name. The hospital is calling the disease "plastic pneumonia syndrome."

If not properly treated, children with the disease will have increasingly serious breathing problems, they warned. They believe the disease may have caused deaths in other hospitals if it is treated as pneumonia.

Doctors said children with the disease usually also have kidney and cardiovascular problems.

(Shenzhen Daily March 31, 2005)