[Radiological and clinical aspects of bronchogenic lung cysts: 4 case reports]

Bronchogenic lung cysts are exceptional. We report four cases which raised a problem of differential diagnosis. Our patients included four women and a young boy (age range 12 - 36 years). The first patient consulted for bloody purulent sputum in a context of an infectious syndrome. The second patient had lower right-sided chest pain. The cyst was a fortuitous discovery in the other two cases. In one case, the chest x-ray disclosed a thin-walled cavity of the upper right lobe, confirmed on the CT scan which also evidenced intracavitary partitions. In two other cases, the chest x-ray showed a liquid-filled opacity (one in the lower right lobe and the other in the upper right lobe) and no further specificity on the CT scan. In the last case, a liquid-air cavity was evidenced. Upper right lobectomy was performed for the case with an air-filled cavity and tumorectomy for the other cases. Pathology reported bronchogenic cyst in all cases. The radiological and clinical presentations observed in patients with bronchogenic lung cysts, with or without tracheobronchial communication, are polymorphous, often raising problems of differential diagnosis.