Tracheotomy in infants and children; nine case reports

Abstract

This paper concerns nine patients with respiratory difficulties of various causes. They were eight males and one female, aged from 4 days to 26 mth, averaging 11.0 ± 3.0 months. Although some of them had neck tumor or cyanosis, the most common complaints were both stridor and dyspnea. They were introduced by pediatric physicians to our Department within 4 months from the beginning of the symptoms. Bronchoscopy was used to make definite diagnoses. Of the 9 patients, one had double aortic arches, two had subglottic hemangioma, two had diphthelial and nonspecific laryngitis, one had epiglottic cyst; one had retropharyngeal abscess, and two had cystic hygroma and nasopharyngeal fibroma. All patients underwent tracheotomy under general anesthesia through endotracheal tube or bronchoscope. Although no early complications were encountered, the late complication of difficult decannulation occurred in two cases. Silicon T-tubes were used for stenting following repair of stenosis in the respiratory tract. In the other seven cases, decannulation succeeded at 10.2 ± 6.2 months after tracheotomy. Moreover, this paper deals with the several problems of tracheotomy in infants and children, especially the importance of established airway passage during tracheotomy.