Anterior pericardial tracheoplasty for long-segment tracheal stenosis: long-term outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Although several techniques have been described for the treatment of tracheal stenosis, including slide tracheoplasty, tracheal autograft, rib grafting, and use of a pericardial patch, the optimal repair remains controversial because of a lack of long-term follow-up data. The purpose of this study is to examine the long-term results of anterior pericardial tracheoplasty.

METHODS: To assess the long-term outcomes of patients who underwent repair of tracheal stenosis with anterior pericardial tracheoplasty, we reviewed the case histories of 26 consecutive patients (1984-present). All but 5 had long-segment tracheal stenosis with more than 10 complete tracheal rings. Twenty-one had significant cardiac disease, and 10 had their cardiac lesions repaired at the time of their tracheoplasty. The median age was 6 months (range, 2 days-25 years). All patients underwent anterior pericardial tracheoplasty through a median sternotomy during normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass. We have previously described our tracheoplasty technique. An average of 14 tracheal rings (range, 5-22) was divided anteriorly, and a patch of fresh autologous pericardium was used to enlarge the trachea to 1.5 times the predicted diameter for age and weight.

RESULTS: There were 3 hospital deaths (at 1, 2, and 7 months, respectively) and 2 late deaths (at 2 and 13 years postoperatively, respectively). No deaths were related to airway obstruction. Two survivors required tracheostomy postoperatively, one after formation of granulation tissue and stenosis and the other after failure to wean from mechanical ventilation. All survivors remain asymptomatic, with minimal to no evidence of airway obstruction. Median follow-up is 11 years (range, 3 months-22 years).

CONCLUSION: Anterior pericardial tracheoplasty for tracheal stenosis provides excellent results in the majority of patients at long-term follow-up.