Pulmonary sequestration
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
A pulmonary sequestration is a medical condition where a piece of tissue that develops into lung tissue is not attached to the pulmonary blood supply and does not communicate with the other lung tissue. Often it gets it's blood supply from the thoracic aorta. Communication is a medical phrase indicating that it is not connected to the standard bronchial airways and that it performs no function in respiration.
This condition is normally detected in children and is generally held to be congenital in nature. The treatment for this is a segmentectomy via a thoracotomy.
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Variations
There are two different kinds of pulmonary sequestrations, intralobar and extralobar. The generally accepted difference between these seems to whether or not the sequestration has it's own pleura, although some thoracic surgeons seem to prefer a definition that relates to the degree of vascular connection for the sequestration.
Symptoms
Symptoms can vary greatly, but they include a persistent dry cough.
Diagnosis
The gold standard for diagnosis is a CT Scan with a contrasting fluid.
Complications
Failure to have a pulmonary sequestration removed can lead to a number of complications. These include:
- It can be fatal if you have hemmoraging of the blood vessels
- It can cause cardiovascular problems due to the creation of a shunt where blood flows in a shortcut through the feed off of the aorta.
- It is necessary to prevent long-term infections. Things like tuberculosis, aspergillosis, bronchial carcinoid, brunchogenic squamous cell carcinoma.
Sources
- Savic B, Birtel FJ, Tholen W, Funke HD, Knoche R. "Lung seqestration: report of seven cases and review of 540 published cases". Thorax 1979;34:96-101
- Ferguson TB: "Congenital lesion of the lungs and emphysema"; Sabiston DC, Spencer FC (eds):Gibbons surgery of the Chest (4th? ed). Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1983, pp 668-709
- Rubin E, Garcia H, Horowitz M, Guerra J. " Fatal Massive Hemoptysia Secondary to Intralobar Sequestration". Chest 1994;106;3; pp 954-955.
- Fabre O, Porte H, Godart F, Rey C, Wurtz A. "Long-Term Cardiovascular Consequences of Undiagnosed Intralobar Pulmonary Sequestration". Annals of Thoracic Surgery 1998;65;1144-6.
- Sabiston D, Spencer F. Surgery of the Chest (6th ed.) pp 853-862.
External Links
- Documentation of a patient experience (http://www.bofh.com/other/medical.html)
- Emedicine on pulmonary sequestrations (http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2628.htm)
