Surgical Options for Pediatric Bilateral Vocal Cord Palsy: State of the Art

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Management of pediatric bilateral vocal cord palsy (BVCP) is a controversial and challenging topic. It may represent a severe obstructive condition usually associated with respiratory distress, and, in such condition, tracheostomy has been considered the gold standard for a long time. Many surgical options have been described and used to increase the glottic space in BVCP (1), with ongoing research of less invasive techniques. The challenge and current trend in our department and in many major pediatric centers is to avoid tracheotomy through an early treatment. Many techniques introduced in the last decade reduced the number of tracheotomies and increased the decannulation rate. Furthermore, we observed a recent increase in attention to preserve the quality of the voice with new techniques, such as endoscopic arytenoid abduction lateropexy which is in our opinion an important innovation to improve glottic space with satisfactory voice results. We present a review of the literature about the evolution of the treatment options for pediatric BVCP during the years.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.