Pulmonary Hamartomas: A Single-Center Analysis of 59 Cases

Case Report: Giant lung hamartoma : An usual cause of lobectomy in a five-year child

Pulmonary hamartomas are the most common benign tumors of the lung in adults. They are usually asymptomatic because of their small size and their slow-growing character. We report the case of a 5-year-old child presenting with a giant lung mass causing recurrent right pneumonia. Surgical resection with middle lobectomy was performed. Final histology revealed pulmonary hamartoma with predominant adenofibromatous and lipomatous differentiation.

Chronic Cough: a Symptom between Pulmonary and Psychogenic Disease. A Case of Misdiagnosed Endobronchial Hamartoma

Endobronchial hamartoma is a benign mesenchymal tumor. It contains fat, cartilage and even bone tissue. It can be asymptomatic or cause respiratory symptoms such as cough and pneumonias. We report a case of a 68-year-old male who suffered from cough for the last four years. During this period of time, he was treated with different therapeutic approaches, including antibiotics, inhaled corticosteroids, pregabaline and bronchodilators, without clinical improvement. Allergic and gastrointestinal diseases were excluded. Pulmonary function tests were all normal. His symptoms had been attributed to anxiety disorder as psychogenic cough. However, a chest computed tomography (CT) was never conducted. Chest CT and bronchoscopy revealed an endobronchial hamartoma. Its endoscopical removal led to impressive remission of symptoms.

The clinicopathological challenges of symptomatic and incidental pulmonary hamartomas diagnosis

Pulmonary hamartomas (PHs) are the most common benign lung tumors. Usually, they are asymptomatic and incidentally discovered during assessment for other diseases or during the autopsy exam. In this context, we have performed a retrospective analysis of surgical resections in a 5-year series of patients diagnosed with PHs in the Clinic of Pulmonary Diseases, Iaşi, Romania, aiming to evaluate their clinicopathological features. A total of 27 patients with PH (40.74% males and 59.26% females) were evaluated. 33.33% of patients were asymptomatic, while the others exhibited variable symptoms, such as chronic cough, dyspnea, chest pain or weight loss. In most cases, PHs presented as solitary nodules, predominantly disposed in the right upper lobe (40.74% of cases), followed by the right lower lobe (33.34%), and left lower lobe (18.51%). The microscopic examination revealed a mixture of mature mesenchymal tissue, such as hyaline cartilage, adipose tissue, fibromyxoid tissue, and smooth muscle bundles, in variable proportions, associated with clefts of entrapped benign epithelium. A dominant adipose tissue component was observed in one case. PH was associated with a history of extrapulmonary cancer diagnosis, in one patient. Although considered benign lung tumors, PHs diagnosis and therapy may be challenging. Having in mind the possibility of recurrence or their occurrence as a part of specific syndromes, PHs should be thoroughly investigated for an appropriate patients' management. Their complex significance and the correlation with other types of lesions, including malignancies, may be further studied, by more extensive studies of surgical and necroptic cases.