CHONDROMATOUS HAMARTOMA OF THE LUNG BY

Chondromatous hamartoma of the lung is a pulmonary "tumour " which, as a result of the progress made in thoracic surgery during the last decade, is now being reported as not particularly uncommon. Since a lack of familiarity with this tumour may give rise to clinical as well as to pathological errors, it seems justified to describe it in some detail. At the same time we will report our experience based on nine cases. The term hamartoma (&uocp'r&uet =to fail or to err) was first used in 1904 by the German pathologist Albrecht, who defined it as a tumour-like malformation of an organ, made up of the normal elements of that organ, but with abnormal mixing and quantity of the components and perhaps an abnormal degree of differen-tiation. The hamartomata originally described by Albrecht were cavernomata of the liver, cavernomata of the spleen, and tuberous fibromata of the medullary sub-stance of the kidney. Goldsworthy (1934) and Jaeger (1934) were the first to realize that the previously reported " chondromata " of the lung were not pure chondromata, but that they should be classified as hamartomas. The word " chondromatous&quot