The diagnostic role of triple endoscopy in pediatric patients with chronic cough.

Objective/hypothesis: Multi-disciplinary aero-digestive centers provide high quality health care through improved outcomes and treatment costs over separate sub specialty clinics. These outcomes are often the result of a common investigative tool known as triple endoscopy: a rigid bronchoscopy performed by an otolaryngologist, flexible bronchoscopy and lavage obtained by a pulmonologist, and an endoscopy with guided biopsies performed by a gastroenterologist. Combining such procedures into one 'triple endoscopy' allows for diagnoses which otherwise might have been missed with just one procedure.

Assessment of the feeding Swallowing Impact Survey as a quality of life measure in children with laryngeal cleft before and after repair.

Objective: To cross-validate the Feeding Swallowing Impact Survey (FSIS), a quality of life instrument, specifically to a subpopulation of children who aspirate due to laryngeal cleft.

Introduction: The FSIS is a recently validated instrument used to describe caregiver quality of life (QOL) in children with aspiration due to various causes. To cross-validate the FSIS specifically to the subpopulation of children who aspirate due to laryngeal cleft, we tested the hypotheses that caregivers would report significant different scores form baseline if their children improved at the one year mark postintervention due to either successful conservative or surgical measures (discriminant validity) and would not report significant differences in their FSIS reporting if there was no change in their child's aspiration at the one year mark post intervention (convergent validity).