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).