A child case of successful surgical repair for tracheal injury secondary to blunt chest trauma

Abstract

An 8-year-old boy was suffered from progressive subcutaneous and mediastinal emphysema following blunt chest trauma. Emergency bronchoscopy revealed tracheal injury just above the carina. The tear of membranous portion was closed with nonabsorbable monofilament sutures through fouth intrecostal thoracotomy. Because the tissue around the injury was weak and massive air leak remained, the suture site was covered with the latissimus dorsi muscle as a pedicle flap. Postoperative clinical course was excellent and the chest CT and bronchoscopy demonstrated no findings of tracheal stenosis at 6 months after the operation. We concluded that this flap method is efective to repair the tracheal injury, especially in cases withe weak tissues.