Fate of hypoplastic lungs after repair of congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Ventilatory function was assessed in 14 children between 6 and 12 years of age who had been operated on in infancy for correction of a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. The FEV1 and FVC were significantly below normal (P [unk] 0·001), but the values for lung volume compartments were within normal limits. Low figures occurred particularly in those in whom the lungs had been noted at operation to be markedly hypoplastic. There is, therefore, a residual defect in ventilatory function in these patients despite a satisfactory repair of the hernia and apparently normal x-ray appearances of the chest in most instances.