New advances for imaging of laryngotracheal stenosis by post processing of spiral-CT data

Abstract

Endotracheal intubation is the most common cause of laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS), followed by external trauma and prior airway surgery [4,8,13]. In rare cases LTS may have resulted also from inhalation injuries, gastroesophageal reflux disease, neoplasia and autoimmune diseases like Wegeners granulomatosis or relapsing polychondritis [4,21]. In paediatric patients vascular compression of the trachea is a common cause of tracheal indentations. Clinical management of these conditions requires information on localization, grade, length and dynamics of the stenosis. The gold standard for airway evaluation is fiberoptic endoscopy (FE) [4]. Imaging modalities like conventional radiography, fluoroscopy, tracheal tomograms, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and above all Spiral Computed Tomography (S-CT) are an essential part of the clinical work up [5]. S-CT allows volumetric data acquisition during a short time span. Decreased motion artefacts and the possibility of reconstructing overlapping slices are the basis for high quality post processing [11,23].