The bronchial segmentation and its anatomical variations. A clinical-anatomic and bronchoscopy study

Area of Science:

• Pulmonology
• Anatomy
• Interventional Respiratory Medicine

Background:

• Interventional respiratory medicine requires detailed bronchial anatomical knowledge.
• Bronchial anatomical variations are increasingly important in modern medicine.
• Limited data exists on bronchial lengths and variation frequencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the frequency of bronchial anatomical variations.
• To analyze bronchial lengths.
• To assess variations in relation to sex and lobar patterns.

Main Methods:

• Observational descriptive study.
• Dissection and measurement of 17 pairs of lungs.
• Analysis of 50 bronchoscopies.

Main Results:

• No significant sex-based differences in variation incidence or bronchial length.
• Left main bronchus is longest; left upper lobe bronchus is shortest.
• Right lower lobe has the highest variation percentage (25.4%); subsuperior bronchus (B*) is the most frequent variation (19.4%).
• Middle and left lower lobes have the lowest variation percentages (11.9%).
• Only 37.3% of specimens had no anatomical variations.

Conclusions:

• A high prevalence of bronchial anatomical variations exists.
• The majority of individuals may have bronchial variations.
• Further research with larger sample sizes is recommended to confirm these findings.