[The lungs in congenital diaphragmatic hernias (author's transl)].

In congenital diaphragmatic hernias, the presence of abdominal viscera in the thoracic cavity will arrest the development of the ipsilateral lung, and occasionally of the controlateral lung also. The lung may thus be either compressed or hypoplastic in varying degrees. Its state of development conditions the prognosis of this disease. In severe forms, known as "High Risk" forms, presenting in the 3 first days of life with respiratory distress, the lung is very often hypoplastic, the number of bronchial, bronichiolar and vascular generations is diminished. The airways pulmonary function in medium and long term has been studied in 10 children over a period of 3 to 15 years. The clinical radiological, scannery and fonctional lung study results present not unfrequently signs of overdistention, of obstructive disease, and pulmonary bronchectasis on the side of the hernia. The evolution could be explained by the normal post natal multiplication of airways as well as by an increase of their size in such a manner as to occupy the whole thoracic cavity.