Congenital cystic pulmonary malformations in children: our experience with 19 patients.

PURPOSE

Congenital cystic pulmonary malformations (CPM) are rare anomalies. The purpose of this study was to present our experience with CPM patients who were surgically treated in our clinic and to discuss our findings along with those from the literature.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Surgical treatment was performed on 19 patients under the age of 16 who were diagnosed with CPM in our clinic between January 1995 and December 2008. The diagnoses, ages, gender, symptoms, locations of the lesions, surgical method used, hospitalization times, complications, and the results of all patients were retrospectively evaluated.

RESULTS

The distribution of diagnoses was as follows: bronchogenic cyst(s) (BC) - 5 patients; pulmonary sequestration (PS) - 6 patients; congenital lobar emphysema (CLE) - 4 patients; congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation (CCAM) Type I - 3 patients, and PS and CCAM coexistence - 1 patient. All patients underwent resection. No operative mortality occurred. The mean postoperative hospitalization time of the patients was 6.9 days (range 4-17 days).

CONSLUSION

CLE, CCAM, and PS may lead to life-threatening respiratory distress in infants. BC, CCAM, and PS, on the other hand, often progress with recurrent pneumonia in children and adults. Surgery is needed to improve severe symptoms, prevent fatal complications, and establish a histopathological diagnosis.