Tracheo-esophageal Puncture Revisited

This study aims to propose a novel surgical technique to rehabilitate patients with long term complication of trachea-esophageal puncture and stomal stenosis. Ours is retrospective study. Ten patients with tracheo-esophageal puncture who developed long term complications and who failed conservative management were included in our study. Majority of our patients were males within the age group of 50-70 years of age. Most of our patients had received adjuvant radiotherapy (8/10). All patients had multiple change of prosthesis. Nine patients suffered from multiple complications of TEP. Most common complication was that of progressive thinning of trachea-esophageal wall. All the patients who underwent this procedure healed well without any major complications. Long term trachea-esophageal puncture may undergo significant modification in terms of position and size. This technique gives a satisfactory and viable method of excising the altered anatomy and establishes speech & swallowing in such patients who fail conservative management.