Abstract
Congenital lobar overinflation (CLO) is a congenital overinflation of a pulmonary lobe. The treatment choice depends on the severity of its symptoms. Surgical intervention is indicated for patients with significant symptomatology, while a conservative approach is used to treat incidental and mildly symptomatic lesions. However, the conservative approach for children with mild symptoms is not very common among pulmonologist. Therefore, we evaluated this approach to treating mildly symptomatic children.
This retrospective study examined mildly symptomatic patients (n = 14) with a radiological diagnosis of CLO between June 2005 and August 2018 who were treated conservatively at KFSHRC in Riyadh. The participants’ ages ranged between two days and four years, with follow-up period ranged from four months to 10 years.
Fourteen patients with CLO—who were 2 days to four years old and comprised 10 boys (71.4%) and four girls (28.6%)—were treated conservatively. All patients were symptomatic upon presentation, and their main clinical findings were tachypnea (85.7%) and dyspnea (78.6%). A single lobe was affected for ten patients (71.4%). Congenital cardiac anomalies founded in six patients (42.9%). Radiological image showed overinflation of all patients’ affected lobes. Significant mediastinal displacement was observed among two patients (14.3%). During their follow-up periods, nine patients (64.3%) became asymptomatic, three (21.4%) showed improvement, and two (14.3%) remained symptomatic and underwent lobectomy.
The good outcomes for mildly symptomatic children with CLO in our series indicate that the conservative approach can be considered to treat these children at any age, along with close follow-up.
•The conservative treatment approaches can be considered for children with mildly symptomatic CLO at any age.•Close follow-up needed for any indication of a possible future lobectomy, according to their clinical situation.•The patients with CLO who present with clinical findings of severe respiratory distress, severe hypoxemia, hypercarbia, a failure to thrive, or a significant mediastinal shift with herniation of the affected lobe across the mediastinum should be operated upon as soon as possible.