Abstract:
Pediatric radiology means application of diagnostic methods in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow -up of the diseases during the period of infancy and childhood. Interpretation of the child’s chest radiograph is probably the most difficult plain film problem presented to the radiologists with a predominantly adult practice.
The aim of the study is radiological assessment of the round pulmonary lesions in the childhood in 149 patients from 0-18 years old using the classical and modern “imaging” methods. The analysis include: gender, localization and dimension of the lesion and clinical symptoms. For that purpose and for appropriate statistical analysis, the total pathology is systematized into three groups: inflammations, parasitic diseases and tumors of mediastinum.
The major number of patients are with parasitic etiology followed by inflammatory diseases of non specific and specific etiology and on third place are tumors and tumor like lesions.
Parasitic lesions are localized mainly in lower parts of the lungs because of characteristic of pulmonary circulation.
It is obvious that inflammatory round lesions are more often localized in both middle and lower lung lobes, which is explained with anatomic characteristics of airway pathways.
Lung tumors are rare in children. Tumor like lesions are predominant localized in anterior part of mediastinum as a result of including hyperplasia of thymus in this study.
The plain chest x-ray is the most common radiologic method for evaluation of round pulmonary lesions. Modern imaging methods have bigger sensitivity in evaluation of radiologic characteristics of these lesions.
From the general statistical analysis it is clear that most of the patients with round pulmonary lesions in the childhood are boys and have parasitic etiology of the lesion I period of life from 6-15 years old.
This study and lecture will make the audience more familiar with round pulmonary lesions which in Balkan region are mainly from Echinococcus granulosus etiology followed by round pneumonia and tuberculomas and mediastinal tumor- like lesions as bronchogenic cysts, enterogenous cyst, esophageal diverticulum etc.
If the radiologists and pediatricians knows where and what to look for, it will help them in their daily practice to simplify the diagnostic procedures and make correct on time diagnosis.
