09/ MM’s Story
MM was diagnosed prenatally with a small lung mass. She was born asymptomatic and later a CT scan confirmed a hybrid lesion with a feeder vessel. After a second opinion at CHOP, she had a successful resection at 3.5 years old, recovered well, and her 6-month post-op X-ray looked great with no further follow-up needed.
My daughter, MM, was diagnosed with what they were pretty sure was a BPS at our 19 week anatomy scan. We were referred to MFM for ultrasounds and had the fetal MRI done. The highest CVR was 0.18 at 20 weeks and by our last scan at 38 weeks the CVR was down to 0.09. She was born asymptomatic through normal spontaneous labor and delivery at 39w1d. They did an X-ray in the newborn nursery and couldn’t see the lung mass.
We saw the Pediatric Surgeon in Jacksonville at 2 months and did the CT scan when she was 1 year old. The CT showed the mass was about the same size as when we had our fetal MRI and it did have a feeder vessel with one cyst—so it was a hybrid lesion. Her surgeon in Jacksonville said he likes to wait until babies are a bit older to operate and recommended another CT and surgery at age 3 years.
As she got closer to 3, I was getting more nervous and decided to seek a second opinion with CHOP just to make sure we were doing everything we should be. We saw Dr. Adzick in December of 2024 and he said he would proceed with surgery but would not repeat the CT. I discussed everything with our local surgeon and he discussed it with his whole team here. He said he would be happy to do the surgery in Florida, but that if it wasn't too much hassle we should go with CHOP as they have done many more of these surgeries and he would be willing to see her for follow-up after the surgery. His team agreed.
We had surgery planned with CHOP in April 2025, but she ended up with a fever the MORNING OF the procedure so it was cancelled 😭 and rescheduled for July (she was 3.5 years old at the surgery date).
Our Philly trip #2 was a success! Our surgery arrival time was 8:30am and they had her in the OR around 10:30am and surgery started at 11:30am. By 12:45 Dr. Adzick was done. He was able to do a resection vs a whole lobectomy and said there were signs of previous infection on the lesion, but she had never had clinical pneumonia or anything more than a cold. The chest tube and epidural came out the following day and she was much more comfortable after that.
We ended up staying 3 nights (he kept us an extra day to make sure her pain was controlled before our drive back to Florida). Otherwise, she was still a little uncomfortable here and there and we continued Tylenol and ibuprofen for about 2 weeks post-op. She also caught a cold 1 week post-op, but handled it well. We did an X-ray at 6 months post-op and they said everything looked great, remaining lung tissue filled in the space and no further follow up is needed.