Hamartoma of the Lung: An autopsy case

ABSTRACT

The so-called chondromatous hamartoma of the lung is an uncommon(0.25% of autopsies) benign tumor consisting of mixture of cartilage, fat, undifferentiated mesenchymal cells and cleft-like spaces lined by a simple cuboidal or ciliated epithelium.) This lesion is now thought to be a true neoplasm rather than a developmental abnormality as the term originally implied. It is generally agreed that it arises in the connective tissue in relation to bronchial walls. We report an autopsy case of lung hamartoma which is associated with advanced tubular bronchiectasis and diffuse interstitial fibrosis. This single case casts some interesting points about its pathogenesis. The patient was a 47 year old woman and had a 2 cm sized well circumscribed pulmonary mass which was located in the subpleural portion of right upper lobe near the minor fissure. On the basis of observations on the tumor and background lesion, we speculated that the multifocal lesions originating from submucosal immature connective tissue coalesce to become a large single mass. So the tumor possesses entrapped alveoli which exhibit the same changes as those of surrounding parenchyme. We also pressure that the inflammatory change may play a role in the initiation of neoplastic proliferating process in this kind of lesion.