Congenital Lung Cysts in Infants and Children

PULMONARY cysts of congenital origin are considered a very rare condition. Up to 1925, Koontz (1) was able to collect 108 cases based on autopsy findings, all of which were published in the European literature. His case report, however, was not the first to appear in the American periodicals. In 1913, Pappenheimer (2) described the necropsy of a seven-months premature infant with multiple congenital cystic cavities in the right lung. The child was cyanotic and made some feeble efforts to breathe; he lived for only three hours under artificial respiration. In 1919, Koeckert (3) described an enormous cyst filling the greater part of the chest in a new-born infant who lived for only two hours, with symptoms of cyanosis and marked dyspnea. The microscopic study of the walls of the cyst revealed its bronchial origin. Since 1925, 120 new cases have been collected from the world's literature, 49 of which have been verified by necropsy. This apparent increase of reported cases is due to the fact that clinicians, ...