DOZ047.44: Coblation supraglottoplasty for symptomatic laryngomalacia

Background Laryngomalacia is the commonest cause of congenital laryngeal stridor and supraglottoplasty is the mainstay of surgical treatment for symptomatic laryngomalacia. A variety of techniques used for ablating redundant tissue in the supraglottis. Novel supraglottoplasty surgical technique is needed to achieve better safety and efficacy. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the outcome and effectiveness of supraglottoplasty. Methods A total of 71 patients with laryngomalacia were studied retrospectively. Of 20 patients with symptomatic laryngomalacia underwent supraglottoplasty and 48 patients were treated conservatively. Two patients refused surgical management. Of 80% underwent successive apnea technique, rest under ETGA. The number of patients who underwent supraglottoplasty technique 14 was of coblation, 3 were of cold steel, 1 was of coagulation, 1 was of laser, and 1 was of microdebrider. The patients were kept under observation in intensive care unit (ICU) from 1 to 3 days then in step downward for 3 to 5 days. No child was intubated in the postoperative period. The patient's demographic information, symptoms, comorbidities, type of laryngomalacia, synchronous airway lesions, and final outcomes were examined. Results The common indications for surgery were feeding problems and failure to thrive along with inspiratory stridor. Most common type of laryngomalacia was type 2 (71%). Good weight gain happened for 18 patients, one patient had to be continued on gastrostomy feeding, one patient did not gain weight. Majority of the patients continued to have some amount of noisy breathing and eventually settled in 3 months postoperatively. No perioperative deaths and no long-term complications occurred, 2 patients were readmitted for increasing stridor and treated with nebulizations and improved. Conclusions Supraglottoplasty is an effective and safe treatment for symptomatic laryngomalacia and has the potential to provide better breathing and feeding outcomes. Among all the techniques, in our retrospective study, we found that successive apnea technique and coblator ablation is safe and effective methods in supraglottoplasty because it gives good exposure of supraglottis, no concern of airway fire, less collateral damage. The advantage is easy instrumentation with single wand for ablation, coagulation, and aspiration. Multicenter cooperative studies of comparison between coblator and conventional approaches would lend further evidence-based support for this surgical method.