Browsing by Author "Kalmi, Henriikka"

This is a retrospective study about the treatment and diagnosis of congenital lung malformations (CLM) in Finland, with a focus on congenital pulmonary airway malformations (CPAM). CPAMs are the most common of CLM’s and the estimated occurrence based on the data gathered in this study is around 10 cases per year. The historical treatment has been almost exclusively surgical, but with modern imaging allowing us to diagnose cases that otherwise would have been missed, a debate regarding the treatment of asymptomatic cases has been raised. The question is whether asymptomatic cases should undergo operative treatment or if a follow and see approach is more appropriate. With this study we wanted to shed light on this question and compare the Finnish treatment of CLMs to the current research. The topic still has no consensus, neither treatment approach can be recommended over the other. However, using our collected data, the current reseach and clinical experience a standardized treatment pathway was created so that in the future this question can be answered. We also looked into the diagnostic accuracy of radiologic imaging. A definitive diagnosis of CLMs still require a histologic examination of the lesion. If the conservative treatment option is to become more common it is important to know how accurate the diagnosis is. Our finding is that other CLMs can be separated from CPAMs but classifications of CPAMs based on radiology alone is not possible.