Congenital adenomatoid malformation of the lung.

In recent years the diagnosis of congenital cystic disease of the lung has been clarified and restricted as a result of the recognition of a variety of emphysematous and cystic lesions of diverse etiologies. True cystic disease is rare.1 Rarer still is the closely related condition first reported in 1897 by Stoerk as " cystic fetal bronchial adenoma, " 2 and introduced in the English language medical literature in 1949 by Ch'In and Tang of Peking as " congenital adenomatoid malformation. " 3 That the adenomatoid mal-formation is a variant of congenital cystic. disease was acknowledged by Ch'In and Tang, but it is sufficiently distinctive to warrant recognition. Examination of published photographs indicates that the lesion in different cases varies from mainly solid, enlarged, tumor-like lobes to multicystic lesions. Moreover, as Craig, et al.,4 point out, there are cases of true congenital cystic disease in which areas resembling the adenomatoid mal-formation are found upon pathological examination. It would appear possible to assemble a series of transitional cases linking true congenital cystic disease and the adenomatoid malformation. The following case is typical of the adenomatoid malformation and represents, we believe, the 28th reported case. Previously reported cases have been tabulated by Gott-schalk and Abramson.5 Case Report Case: The mother, aged 23 years, para I, gravida II, first visited her doctor in the sixth month of pregnancy. Examination revealed no abnormal findings. Her first child, aged 13 months, was reported to be alive and well. The mother returned to the office six weeks later with an extremely distended abdomen, the uterus being tense and tender. The blood pressure was normal. The fetal heart could not be heard. A From the Department of Pathology, University of Alberta.