Dysanaptic

In other words, parenchyma could be to some extent molded according to the environment (airways and chest) in which it is forming, whereas this seems relatively less likely for the tracheobronchial tree itself. At any rate within normal individuals there seems to be opportunity for physiological variation in the geometry of the tracheobronchial tree and parenchyma due to different patterns of embryonic growth. We searched for a term to describe this type of growth pattern and were not able to find one. We therefore suggest the word "dys-anaptic" (from the Greek dys = unequal, and anaptixy = growth) to indicate the concept of a growth pattern which may, within limits, occur disproportionately between constituent parts of an organ while allowing normal physiological function of the whole.

The concept of the disproportionate growth between lung size and airway caliber was termed "dysanaptic growth" by Green and colleagues in 1974 […] This is all physiologically interesting; however, is it clinically important? In this edition of the Journal, Forno and colleagues (pp. 314–323) present a comprehensive study looking at the question of whether airway dysanapsis is associated with asthma morbidity in obese children.