ABSTRACT
Forty-eight patients: 27 women and 21 men, with mean age of 36 +/- 14 years were operated on for bronchiectasis from 1976 to 1989. In 20 cases bronchiectasis was the sequelae of acute bronchopathy of childhood, 6 cases of tuberculosis and 5 cases of inhalated foreign bodies. The bronchiectasis was apparently primitive in 12 occasions. Five varied etiologies were found of which 2 congenital hypogammaglobulinemias. The anatomic extension of the lesions was precised in 47 cases by bronchography and CT scan in 6 cases, in 1 case with CT scan only. The lesions were bilateral in 5 cases. One pneumonectomy, 42 lobectomies (of which 10 bilobectomies) and 5 segmentectomies were performed. The operative mortality was nil. The morbidity (14 cases among 48, i.e. 29%) was not negligible and was comparable with the literature data. The evalued results for 36 patients (mean post-operative follow-up: 54 +/- 58 months) showed that 24 patients (67%) were asymptomatic, 34 have taken their normal professional activities.
Subject(s)
Bronchiectasis/surgery , Pneumonectomy , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Bronchiectasis/diagnostic imaging , Bronchiectasis/etiology , Bronchiectasis/pathology , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Pneumonectomy/methods , Pneumonectomy/standards , Postoperative Complications/epidemiology , Retrospective Studies , Tomography, X-Ray ComputedABSTRACT
Over the past 19 years, 278 patients (238 men-40 women) have undergone 325 parietal pleurectomies: 311 transaxillary apical and 14 full pleurectomies. Mean age was 32 +/- 12 years. The overall male:female ratio was 6:1. Surgical treatment was performed for either recurrence of spontaneous pneumothorax or failure to respond adequately to management by tube drainage. Thirty-six patients underwent one stage bilateral apical pleurectomy. On the basis of our experience (idiopathic pneumothorax: 311; chronic obstructive lung disease: 12; histiocytosis X: 2), we advocate the use of transaxillary apical pleurectomy for the younger age group with recurrent idiopathic pneumothorax and a full pleurectomy in the older age group. Major complications occurred in 1.9% of cases (re-exploration for haemorrhage: 5 cases; for air leak: 1 case). The recurrence rate in this group of patients was 1% (3 in 278 patients: one of them has been reoperated).