Plastic Bronchitis

Bronchoplasty is a set of interventions involving the closure of airways called bronchi and their end-to-end anastomosis. The purpose is to protect the intact lung tissue during the removal of pathology leading to surgery. Namely, the aim is to prevent the removal of whole lung (pneumonectomy) while removing a centrally located bronchial lesion.

Bronchoplasty is Basically Performed for Two Purposes:

• Bronchial stenosis (trauma or infection-related permanent stenosis)
• Bronchial tumors (benign or malignant tumors)

Surgeries with bronchoplasty technique are more difficult than normal surgeries and require experience. It is very important to investigate whether the patient is fit for the surgery or not. Lesion should be close to the center and the rest of the lung tissue should be benign. It is significant to determine the length of intrabronchial lesion prior to operation

Lesioned bronchus is circularly removed by thoracotomy technically by bronchoplasty under general anesthesia. Two cut ends of bronchi are sewed end to end. When these ends need to be approximated to each other for sewing, many release techniques are used.

Comparison of bronchoplastic surgeries with standard pneumonectomy reveals that they have no additional contribution to death risk of the surgery and protect the lung functions and life quality since more lung tissue is left.