BACKGROUND—Severe tracheobronchial malacia and stenosis are important causes of morbidity and mortality in children in intensive care, but little is known about how best to diagnose these conditions or determine their prognosis. METHODS—The records of all 62 children in whom one or both of these conditions had been diagnosed by contrast cinetracheobronchography in our intensive care unit in the period 1986-95 were studied. RESULTS—Seventy four per cent of the 62 children had congenital heart disease; none was a preterm baby with airways disease associated with prolonged ventilation. Fifteen of the children had airway stenosis without malacia; three died because of the stenosis and two died from other causes. Twenty eight of the 47 children with malacia died; only eight children survived without developmental or respiratory handicap. All children needing ventilation for malacia for longer than 14 consecutive days died if their bronchogram showed moderate or severe malacia of either main bronchus (15cases), or malacia of any severity of both bronchi (three additional cases); all children needing ventilation formalacia for longer than 21 consecutive days died if their bronchogramshowed malacia of any severity of the trachea or a main bronchus (threeadditional cases). These findings were strongly associated with a fataloutcome (p<0.00005); they were present in 21 children (all of whomdied) and absent in 26 (of whom seven died, six from non-respiratory causes). They had a positive predictive value for death of 100%, butthe lower limit of the 95% confidence interval was 83.9% so up to16% of patients meeting the criteria might survive. CONCLUSION—In thisseries the findings on contrast cinetracheobronchography combined withthe duration of ventilation provided a useful guide to the prognosis ofchildren with tracheobronchomalacia. The information provided bybronchoscopy was less useful.
