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Background and objective Lung adenocarcinoma with miliary metastasis in both lungs is easily misdiagnosed. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical features of lung adenocarcinoma with miliary metastases in both lungs and to improve the clinician's understanding of the disease. Methods The clinical manifestation, radiology and pathology were analyzed in one patient with miliary intrapulmonary carcinomatosis in Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University. A review of literature was performed with "miliary intrapulmonary carcinomatosis", "lung cancer miliary", "pulmonary nodule, lung cancer" and "EGFR miliary" as key words in PubMed, Wangfang datebase and CNKI. Results The patient was a 52 year-old woman with a history of productive cough for 2 months, which aggraveted with shortness of breath for 1 month. Her computed tomography of chest showed diffuse military nodules distributed at bilateral lungs. Computed tomography (CT)-guided needle biopsy of the left lung revealed lung adenocarcinoma and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 21 L858R mutation. The patient was treated with gefitinib 250 mg per day. The chest CT was reviewed several times during this period, which shows the double lung nodules were reduced. The patient is generally in good condition and her symptoms have improved. By literature review, we found relevant 7 Chinese articles and 56 English articles, a total of 16 cases have been reported. 17 patients were lung adenocarcinoma, 2 patients did not describe whether to detect EGFR gene mutations, 1 patient did not have EGFR gene mutation; 10 patients were EGFR exon 19 deletion, 1 patient was ALK positive, 1 patient was EGFR exon 21L858R mutation, 2 patients were EGFR exon 20 insertion. Conclusion Lung adenocarcinoma with miliary metastasis in both lungs is a rare phenomenon. We should pay attention to the performance to avoid misdiagnosis. Most of the adenocarcinoma subtypes have EGFR mutations, and EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are the preferred treatment choice for this type of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]