Surgical management of choanal atresia: improved outcome using mitomycin.

Objective: To evaluate the intraoperative use of mitomycin to improve the surgical outcome and reduce the rate of soft tissue restenosis in children undergoing choanal atresia repair.

Design: Retrospective chart review of all patients surgically treated for congenital choanal atresia by the senior author (W.F.M).

Setting: Tertiary children's hospital.

Patients: Eight consecutive patients with bony choanal atresia (6 unilateral and 2 bilateral) were compared with 15 historical controls (6 unilateral and 9 bilateral). All study and historical control patients were treated with soft plastic postoperative stenting.

Intervention: At the completion of the surgical repair of the choanal atresia, 0.4 mg/mL of topical mitomycin was applied to the posterior choanae for 3 minutes.

Main Outcome Measure: The success rate of the repair of the choanal atresia as determined by the postoperative need for dilation or revision surgical procedures was compared with that of the historical controls.

Results: All 8 children with intraoperative use of mitomycin were treated with a mean +/- SEM of 0.375 +/- 0.183 dilations per patient. The 15 children in the control group received a mean +/- SEM of 3.667 +/- 0.583 postoperative dilations for soft tissue restenosis. The difference in the number of postoperative dilations between the study and control group was statistically significant (P =.006) using a t test.

Conclusions: Mitomycin is an effective and reliable treatment for improving the surgical outcome for choanal atresia repair. This may obviate the need for postoperative dilations and may potentially eliminate the need for surgical stenting.