PMC5217896_01
Intraoperative findings: (a) dorsal view, (b,c) ventral view. CB, common right upper and middle lobe bronchi; ML, middle lobe; RLB, right lower bronchus; RMB, right main bronchus; RPA, right pulmonary artery; RUL, right upper lobe; SL, stapling lines.
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After separating the posterior of the oblique fissure, we still found no RUL bronchus located at the posterior of the right pulmonary artery (RPA; Fig 1a). This was accomplished using a surgical stapling device; the stapling lines (SL) can be seen in Figure 1. We then observed that the right lower lobe bronchus (RLB) and the common right upper and middle lobe bronchi were directly connected to the RMB (Fig 1b,c). In addition, the RPA passed superiorly to the top of the common bronchi, as is normally the case with the arrangement of left pulmonary hilum structure (Fig 1).
Computed tomography findings: (a,b) anterior view, (c) inferior view.
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After surgery, we constructed images of the bronchial tree in the preoperative CT, which revealed that the RUL and ML bronchi had a common stem, and no normal intermediate bronchus was found (Fig 2).