Long-term outcome of pre- and perinatal management of congenital head and neck tumors and malformations.

Introduction: Congenital head and neck pathology may cause direct postnatal airway obstruction. Prenatal diagnosis facilitates safe delivery with pre- and perinatal airway assessment and management and Ex-Utero-Intrapartum-Treatment (EXIT) if necessary. Fetoscopic airway evaluation can optimize the selection of patients in need of an EXIT procedure.

Tracheal transplantation.

Purpose Of Review: This review discusses the important advances in the reconstruction of airway wall defects resulting from stenosis and tumor resection.

Recent Findings: Recent insights concerning regeneration, revascularization, and transplantation of the trachea are presented. The current study reviews tracheal transplantation as a new treatment modality.

Tracheal autotransplantation: guidelines for optimal functional outcome.

Objectives/hypothesis: Tracheal autotransplants can repair extensive hemilaryngectomy defects. This technique was introduced into the clinic some 10 years ago as a means of avoiding the mutilation of a total laryngectomy in selected patients with laryngeal cancer. Our goal was to give the morphometric guidelines that guarantee an optimal functional outcome.

Extramammary myofibroblastoma in the head and neck region.

Background: Mammary myofibroblastoma is a benign mesenchymal tumor of the breast. Extramammary location is very rare and usually occurs along the embryonic milk-line.

Methods And Results: In this article, we present a case of a woman with an infra-auricular swelling.

Submucosal purse-string suture as a treatment of leakage around the indwelling voice prosthesis.

Background: Leakage around the indwelling voice prosthesis is an annoying complication of tracheoesophageal speech.

Methods: Twenty patients, who experienced peripheral leakage of the tracheoesophageal fistula, were treated with a purse-string suture. Our aim was to get the patients free of leakage without losing their voice prosthesis.

Correlation of local outcome after partial laryngectomy with cartilage abnormalities on CT.

Background And Purpose: The prognostic significance of laryngeal cartilage abnormalities, as seen on CT or MR imaging, in laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer, is unclear. The purpose is to determine whether cartilage abnormalities as seen on preoperative CT in laryngeal and pyriform sinus cancer are predictive of local outcome after partial laryngectomy.

Methods: The preoperative CT studies in a consecutive series of 16 patients who underwent extended hemilaryngectomy for squamous cell carcinoma of the glottis (n = 12), supraglottis (n = 1), or pyriform sinus (n = 3) were reviewed retrospectively.

Tubes of vascularized cartilage used for replacement of rabbit cervical trachea.

This study was performed to evaluate the healing process of vascularized cartilage tubes after reconstruction of circumferential tracheal defects in rabbits. Vascularized cartilage was obtained by applying ear cartilage to a vascularized fascia flap in the lateral thoracic area in 10 animals. Five animals (control group) were used to evaluate the viability of the vascularized cartilage after 2 weeks.

Functional treatment of a large laryngeal chondrosarcoma by tracheal autotransplantation.

Chondrosarcoma of the cricoid cartilage poses difficult therapeutic challenges. The tumor necessitates resection of parts of the cricoid cartilage with a resulting defect that is difficult to repair. We wanted to improve the functional outcome after resection of a lateralized chondrosarcoma by applying the technique of tracheal autotransplantation.

Tracheal autotransplantation as a new and reliable technique for the functional treatment of advanced laryngeal cancer.

Objectives/hypothesis: Tracheal autotransplantation allows for reconstruction of extended hemilaryngectomy defects (including half of the cricoid cartilage) after resection of laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer. A series of 38 patients underwent the operation. The technique involved a two-stage procedure (stage 1, tracheal revascularization; stage 2, hemilaryngectomy and tracheal autotransplantation) because the trachea requires at least 2 weeks for revascularization.

Arteria lusoria identified on preoperative CT and nonrecurrent inferior laryngeal nerve during thyroidectomy: a retrospective study.

Background: To evaluate surgical identification of nonrecurrence of the inferior laryngeal nerve (NRILN) during thyroidectomy in patients with an aberrant subclavian artery (a. lusoria) as seen on CT.

Material And Methods: The medical files of patients treated by thyroidectomy between January 1998-December 2000 (n = 583) were retrospectively reviewed for preoperative and postoperative mobility of the vocal cords and perioperative identification of NRILN.