Lung function, exercise tolerance, and physical growth of children with congenital lung malformations at 8 years of age

Objective To improve counseling on congenital lung malformations (CLM) by describing long‐term outcomes of children either operated on or managed by observation. Study design We analyzed lung function (spirometry), exercise tolerance (Bruce treadmill), and physical growth of 8‐year‐old children with CLM who participated in our longitudinal prospective follow‐up program. The data are shown as median standard deviation scores (SDS) with IQR, or estimated marginal means (95% CI) on the basis of general linear models. Results Twenty‐nine (48%) of the 61 children had required surgery at a median age of 108 (IQR: 8‐828) days, and 32 (52%) were managed by observation. In the surgery group, all lung function measurements (except for forced vital capacity [FVC]) were significantly below 0 SDS, with median FEV1 −1.07 (IQR: −1.70 to −0.56), FEV1/FVC −1.49 (−2.62 to −0.33), and FEF25%‐75% −1.95 (−2.57 to −0.63) (all P