Anomaly After Baby
Detecting an anomaly after birth can be challenging. This is what happened to a 1 month old full term baby girl who came into the emergency department with severe respiratory distress and chest infection. Upon looking at a chest x-ray, they had seen increased opacification of the right lung with reduced lung volume, air bronchograms, and mild hyperinflation of the left lung. After the chest x-ray, a CT was evaluated and they found hypoplasia of the right lung with multiple air bronchograms. It showed that only the left bronchus was at the tracheal bifurcation and the right bronchus was seen at the distal end of the esophagus. They then inserted a nasogastric tube into the esophagus and injected it with barium which concluded the diagnosis of
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To this day only 20 cases have been reported. Usually diagnosis will be 8 months of life but studies have shown that kids have grown into adulthood before being diagnosed. The earlier the diagnosis the worse the prognosis will be. Females are more affected by this anomaly and there are no studies showing why that is the case. Most of the documented cases the patient had esophageal atresia.
The treatment for this anomaly is to divide and suture the ends of the tube and perform a complete resection. The abnormal opening in the esophagus should be repaired. This procedure needs to be done right when patient is diagnosed. The most common symptom that is seen is chest infections so if it does not appear to affect a person it cannot be diagnosed right away. Lucky for this baby girl she was diagnosed early on due to her severe respiratory distress.
This journal article interested me because I have never heard of this anomaly. It was interesting to know that your right bronchus can fuse with your esophagus. After reading the whole article I thought that this would be more common than it is. Only 20 cases documented, that’s interesting and rare. I wonder if there are more unknown cases that patients have it but do not know they do. It is possible to go on to adult life with your right bronchus attached to the distal part of your esophagus. The right lung could still be supplied by the pulmonary artery and vein so it is quite possible to continue
To this day only 20 cases have been reported. Usually diagnosis will be 8 months of life but studies have shown that kids have grown into adulthood before being diagnosed. The earlier the diagnosis the worse the prognosis will be. Females are more affected by this anomaly and there are no studies showing why that is the case. Most of the documented cases the patient had esophageal atresia.
The treatment for this anomaly is to divide and suture the ends of the tube and perform a complete resection. The abnormal opening in the esophagus should be repaired. This procedure needs to be done right when patient is diagnosed. The most common symptom that is seen is chest infections so if it does not appear to affect a person it cannot be diagnosed right away. Lucky for this baby girl she was diagnosed early on due to her severe respiratory distress.
This journal article interested me because I have never heard of this anomaly. It was interesting to know that your right bronchus can fuse with your esophagus. After reading the whole article I thought that this would be more common than it is. Only 20 cases documented, that’s interesting and rare. I wonder if there are more unknown cases that patients have it but do not know they do. It is possible to go on to adult life with your right bronchus attached to the distal part of your esophagus. The right lung could still be supplied by the pulmonary artery and vein so it is quite possible to continue