Atypical pulmonary sequestration causing respiratory distress in a 2-month-old male infant

Abstract

Pulmonary sequestrations are non-functional masses of lung tissue lacking normal communication with the tracheobronchial tree and systemic-circulation-derived blood supply. The disconnection between the normal airway and pulmonary arterial supply prevents pulmonary sequestrations from participating in respiration while their aberrant circulation increases the potential for hemodynamic imbalance. Extralobar sequestrations are prenatally diagnosed, congenital lesions that may become symptomatic before or after birth, whereas intralobar sequestrations are usually identified during adulthood. This report describes a 2-month-old boy with respiratory distress caused by an anomaly characterized by a systemic artery feeding a large segment of the left lower lobe lacking normal ventilation due to absent bronchial connections. This segment that was surrounded by its own visceral pleura, and separated from the normal lower lobe by a fissure, drained through a large vessel into the left inferior pulmonary vein, causing left-to-left shunting and high output failure. Symptoms disappeared immediately following thoracoscopic division of the aberrant vessels and excision of only the sequestered segment. This case accentuates the hemodynamic imbalance set off by a left-to-left shunt across an atypical sequestration that although intralobar was separated by an accessory fissure from the normal parenchyma and also the benefits of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery.