Surgical results of 29 patients with benign tracheobronchial lesions

This study was carried out in order to evaluate the surgical results of benign tracheobronchial diseases. Between July 1988 and March 1996, tracheobronchial surgery was performed on 29 patients with a variety of benign diseases. The primary diseases were post intubation or post tracheostomy tracheal stenosis (n = 12), tuberculous stenosis (n = 7), congenital tracheal stenosis with or without vascular ring (n = 4), tracheobronchial tumour (n = 2), oesophageal tumour (n = 1), and miscellaneous conditions (n = 3). Thirty-one operative procedures included sleeve lobectomy (n = 7), sleeve resection of trachea (n = 17) and bronchus (n = 2), and plastic surgery of trachea (n = 4) and bronchus (n = 1). There was one operative death, which put the mortality rate at 3.4%. There were five postoperative complications in this series (17.2%), including anastomotic disruption of trachea (n = 1), bilateral vocal cord palsy (n = 1), prolonged endotracheal intubation (n = 1) and overgrowth of granulation (n = 2). The complication of anastomotic disruption of trachea was treated by insertion of a tracheal T-tube, and the granulation was treated by bronchoscopic excision. We suggest that tracheobronchoplasty is a safe procedure in carefully selected patients with benign diseases.