Large airway obstruction, subglottic stenosis, tracheal narrowing, and tracheomalacia are common morbidities associated with prematurity secondary to prolonged intubation. Laryngotracheoplasty is often required to alleviate subglottic stenosis and allow a patient to be decannulated from their tracheostomy. Patients will often have continued airway and voice issues despite being able to live without a tracheostomy. The clinical conundrum in treating this patient is whether vocal folds can be surgically moved closer together to improve vocalization without compromising the airway further and increasing resistance. Here we demonstrate how this clinical conundrum can be informed by CT-derived CFD modeling in a 15-year-old male former 31-week preterm infant with dysphonia and subglottic airway narrowing at the cervical trachea and narrow vocal cords. Read More

Meeting name: SPR 2024 Annual Meeting & Postgraduate Course , 2024

Authors: Elma Alexander, Bates Alister, Xiao Qiwei, De Alarcon Alessandro, Fleck Robert

Keywords: compurtational fluid dynamics, airway modeling, subglottic stenosis