Thoracoscopic lobectomy in infants less than 10 kg with prenatally diagnosed cystic lung disease.

Purpose: Thoracoscopic lobectomy for congenital cystic lung lesions is an accepted technique in pediatric surgery. Since an increasing number of these lesions are detected prenatally, the safety and efficacy of infant resections have been questioned. We reviewed our experience over a 10-year period to evaluate early resection of these lesions.

Methods: From January 2001 to August 2009, 75 patients under 1 year of age and weighing <10 kg underwent thoracoscopic lobectomy at two institutions. Patients carried the following diagnoses: 52 had congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation, 20 had bronchopulmonary sequestration, and 3 had congenital lobar emphysema. All lesions were confirmed after birth by computed tomography scan. Patient age at operation ranged from 4 days to 11 months and patient weight from 3.1 to 10 kg.

Results: Seventy-four of 75 lobectomies were thoracoscopically completed. There were 16 upper lobectomies, 1 middle lobectomy, and 55 lower lobectomies. Operative time ranged from 45 to 225 minutes. Hospital length of stay ranged from 1 to 5 days. A subset of 26 patients had surgery younger than 3 months of age and <5 kg, despite being asymptomatic. Their operative time averaged 90 minutes, and mean length of hospital stay was 1.5 days.

Conclusion: Thoracoscopic lobectomy is safe for infants <10 kg and avoids the morbidity associated with thoracotomy. Operating early on younger patients may avoid the inflammatory changes associated with both clinically apparent and subclinical infections, even in patients weighing <5 kg. This may make the procedures less technically challenging and may result in lower complication and conversion rates.