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A pulmonary sequestration, also known as a bronchopulmonary sequestration or a cystic lung lesion, is a medical condition where a piece of tissue that develops into lung tissue is not attached to the pulmonary blood supply and does not communicate with the other lung tissue. Often it gets its blood supply from the thoracic aorta. Communication is a medical phrase indicating that it is not connected to the standard bronchial airways and that it performs no function in respiration.
This condition is normally detected in children and is generally held to be congenital in nature. The treatment for this is a segmentectomy via a thoracotomy. More and more, these lesions are diagnosed by prenatal ultrasound.
There are two different kinds of pulmonary sequestrations, intralobar and extralobar. The generally accepted difference between these seems to whether or not the sequestration has its own pleura, although some thoracic surgeons seem to prefer a definition that relates to the degree of vascular connection for the sequestration.
Symptoms can vary greatly, but they include a persistent dry cough.
Sequestrations can be identified in-utero via an abnormal artery on ultrasound. The gold standard for diagnosis is pulmonary angiography. But since it is a very invasive procedure, it is getting replaced by CT Scan with a contrasting fluid, as the investigation of choice. Further studies are required for comparing sensitivity and specificity of angiograms versus ct scans in diagnosing pulmonary sequestration.
Failure to have a pulmonary sequestration removed can lead to a number of complications. These include:
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