There is growing research on the association between swallowing dysfunction and laryngomalacia. Supraglottoplasty is the surgical intervention used to treat laryngomalacia, however a portion of patients who undergo this procedure will require a revision surgery. Predictive risk factors for revision supraglottoplasty in patients with laryngomalacia are not well understood, and previous studies failed to evaluate swallowing systematically.
We predict a significant association between swallowing dysfunction and revision supraglottoplasty for patients with laryngomalacia.
This was a retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients between 2013 and 2023 at a tertiary pediatric care centre (Stollery Children's Hospital). All patients had an endoscopic diagnosis of laryngomalacia by a staff otolaryngologist and at minimum a systematic clinical swallowing assessment by a speech language pathologist, with an instrumental assessment as needed. Patients with genetic or neurological comorbidities, lack of follow up information, or age of >3 years were excluded. Clinical and instrumental swallow data, demographic information, surgical outcomes and revision surgeries were documented and collected. Univariate analysis was done to determine associations between variables and revision supraglottoplasty. Binary logistic regression was done to determine independent predictors of revision supraglottoplasty.
214 patients met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in the study. 24 patients (11 %) required revision supraglottoplasty. 118 out of the 214 patients (55 %) had an instrumental assessment completed (FEES or VFSS). Of those, 92 (78 %) had abnormal findings on instrumental assessments. Univariate analysis showed Type 2 laryngomalacia (P = 0.017), presence of aspiration (P=<0.001), presence of cyanosis (P = 0.002) and abnormal findings on an instrumental assessment (P = 0.013) to be significantly associated with the need for revision supraglottoplasty. Binary regression analysis showed aspiration (OR = 5.6 {2.087–14.889}, P=<0.001) and cyanosis (OR = 5.3 {1.852–15.181}, P = 0.002) to be the only independent predictors of revision supraglottoplasty.
Presence of aspiration is a strong predictive factor for revision supraglottoplasty in patients with laryngomalacia, when swallowing is evaluated systematically. More prospective research is needed to understand the relationship between swallowing dysfunction, laryngomalacia and surgery.
Existing literature on the prevalence of middle turbinate pneumatization, or concha bullosa (CB), in the pediatric population is limited. CB is an anatomic variant important to identify prior to sinonasal surgery and is often associated with congenital nasal septal deviation (SD). This paper aims to describe the prevalence of CB in the pediatric population on head imaging.
A retrospective chart review was performed for 695 children undergoing CT head for trauma from 2021 to 2022. Nearly equal numbers of males and females were evaluated, with at least 19–20 per year from 0.5 to 18 years. Patients with significant facial fractures, sinusitis, craniofacial syndromes, prior sinus surgery, and sinonasal masses were excluded. Two pediatric neuroradiologists evaluated the CTs. CB was defined as aeration >50 % of the vertical height of the middle turbinate.
In this study, 384 patients were included. The prevalence of CB was 153 (39.8 %), which was significantly higher in children >4 years (p < 0.0001). Lamellar type CB was the most common, present in 160 out of 768 middle turbinates assessed (20.8 %). SD occurred in 60 (39.2 %) patients with CB and was more commonly contralateral to the CB.
The prevalence of CB in the pediatric population is at the lower range of what is reported in the adult literature. The most common type of CB in patients is lamellar. Similar to previous studies, there is an association between CB and contralateral SD. Finally, there is a positive correlation between the severity of CB and the severity of SD.