[Advances in pediatric thoracic surgery during the past 50 years]

Surgical strategies and treatment for pediatric airway and lung diseases have advanced significantly, especially in the fields of subglottic stenosis, congenital tracheal stenosis, congenital cystic lung lesions, and endoscopic surgery, during the past 50 years. Pediatricians, pathologists, and pediatric surgeons have engaged in continuous discussions at scientific meetings to establish standard terminology and operative indications and to refine surgical techniques such as laryngoplasty, sliding tracheoplasty, lobectomy under thoracotomy and thoracoscopy. The modified Myer-Cotton grading system for subglottic stenosis was proposed and proved to be useful in selecting reconstructive operative techniques. The addition of aortopexy to sliding tracheoplasty was also confirmed to be effective in maintaining a wide postoperative tracheal lumen. The disease entities of each type of cystic lung lesion were clarified, and the clinical and etiological importance of bronchial/bronchiolar atresia was emphasized. A classification of congenital cystic lung disease was proposed based on anatomic and embryologic considerations. In this classification, congenital pulmonary airway anomaly was introduced to replace congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation of the lung. Intralobar sequestration of the lung must be located in the lower lobe in this definition and classification.