Background: Prenatal diagnosis helps much to prevent postoperative complications and mortality in congenital pulmonary malformations. Unfortunately, prenatal diagnosis of pulmonary malformations is not common in our country yet. We aimed to share the evaluation and treatment data of cases operated due to congenital pulmonary diseases in our clinic to draw attention to them.

Methods: The records of 20 cases who were operated in our clinic between 1997 and 2005 were evaluated retrospectively. Age, gender, diagnosis method and time, surgical interventions, morbidity and mortality were investigated.

Results: The symptoms mostly included dyspnea, neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, and recurrent pneumonia in most of the cases. Chest x-ray examination, computed tomography, arteriography and bronchoscopy were used for preoperative evaluation. There were seven congenital cystic adenomatoid malformations (CCAM), five pulmonary sequestrations, five bronchogenic cysts and three congenital lobar emphysemas. All cases were diagnosed postnatally. Intra lobar sequestration was detected in three adult patients. Lobectomy was performed in all cases except bronchogenic cyst and extra lobar sequestration Morbidity was 20% (4 cases) and mortality was 5% (1 patient).

Conclusion: Congenital pulmonary malformations may be fatal when diagnosis is late. They should be remembered in order to be detected in prenatal examinations and also one should know that the disease can be treated surgically. It should be remembered also that even a simple bronchogenic cyst may cause serious complications such as compression on major airways, infection and carcinogenesis. Early diagnosis and proper treatment lead to good results.

Keywords : Diagnosis; respiratory tract diseases/congenital