RESULTS
Sixteen patients with CLM and 30 age-matched control group were included
to the study. Of these 16 patients, nine (56.2%) were boys and seven
(43.8%) were girls, mean age was 12.0 + 5.4 years. Eleven
(68.75%) of the patients had congenital pulmonary airway malformation,
two patients (12.5%) had bronchogenic cyst, one patient (6.25%) had
bronchopulmonary sequestration, one patient (6.25%) had congenital
lobar emphysema and one patient (6.25%) had combined pulmonary airway
malformation and sequestration. In the healthy control group, 13
(43,3%) were boys and 17 (%56.6) were girls, mean age was 12,5+ 2.9 years old.
Clinical data, lesion site, age at operation, pre and post-operative
symptomatic disease information for patient group were shown in Table-1.
Lobectomy was performed in all patients except one. This patient had a
BC located in the mediastinum and cystectomy was performed. Six patients
having symptoms in the post-operative period were symptomatic before
resection as well. All asymptomatic patients remained symptom free after
the operation. Some of the patients gave the information of having more
than one symptom in the preperative period. In both pre and
post-operative period, most frequent finding was recurrent lower
respiratory tract infections (LRTI) as shown in Table-1.
At the evaluation visit for both groups, all patients’ physical
examination findings, transcutaneous O2 saturation
values and blood gases analysis (Ph, CO2) were in normal
range. Both groups’ weight, height and body mass index (BMI) parameters
were in normal range according to the WHO references. The PFT for both
groups were given in Table-2.
Comparison was performed between the two groups by assessing LCI and
spirometry. In LCI measurements 15 of 16 patients having acceptable
measurements in the patients group and all participants in the control
group (Table-2). Patients with CLM, had significantly lower values in
FEV1, FVC, FEF25-75 and significantly
higher values in LCI compared with the healthy control group.
All patients with normal LCI values (n:4) were also confirmed to be
normal by spirometry. On the other hand, we were able to detect
impairement in additional 7 patients with LCI measurment in contrast to
their normal spirometric results, not reaching to statistical
significance (p=0.516).
There was no correlation between the patients age at surgery and
spirometric or LCI values, for Spirometry (P: 0,2 - rho: 0.39), for LCI
(p: 0.078 rho: -0.469). Strong inverse correlations between LCI and
FEV1, FEV1/FVC were detected in patients
group (p: 0.023 r: -0,581, p: 0.017 r: -0,606 respectively) (Figure 1a
and 1b). Also, there were strong inverse correlations between LCI and
Spirometric values (FEV1, FVC, FEV1/FVC,
PEF) of all participants’ (p: 0.002 r: -0,449, p: 0.022 r: -0,341, p:
0,009 r: -0,385, p: 0,038 r: -0,311 respectively).