Abstract
Rationale
The broncho-pulmonary (BP) anatomy has been extensively described in the '30-'50 of last century. In 1950 an article in Thorax [(1950), 5, 222] appeared summarizing an international effort resulting in a general accepted nomenclature of the BP anatomy. Although the article mentions the possibility of anatomic variations on a segmental level, this area has not been studied as of today. This study aims to investigate the occurrence of anatomical variations in a large population.
Methods
100 spirometry controlled CT scans at TLC were analyzed retrospectively. Airway trees and centerlines were semi-automatically generated using Mimics 15.0 (Materialise, Belgium). All centerline labels were cross checked by the same 2 observers until mutual agreement was obtained. Anatomic variations were labelled in accordance to Ikeda (Netter 1979, see figure).
Results
9 anatomical variations on the accepted 18 segment model are observed in 68% of the patients. 4 of these segments are commonly found (yellow in figure) and 5 segments are rare (red). Details are given in the table.
Conclusions
As non-invasive retrospective CT analysis demonstrated, BP anatomy variations are not uncommon. It might be of interest to undertake an epidemiologic study to investigate the extent of anatomic variations in the BP anatomy.
- © 2014 ERS
