Ahmed Rohail, Muhammad Faheem Malik, Zafar Iqbal Gill, Waseem Yousaf Malik.
Incidence of complications of tracheostomy and their management.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;4(2):119-22.

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to list and classify complications of tracheostormy, to list factors leading to complications and to manage the complications once diagnosed and measure their outcome. Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study. Setting: ENT Department, Jinnah Hospital, Lahore. Duration of Study: Six months (1st April 2009 to 30th September, 2009) Patients and methods: The study was carried out on fifty patients who underwent tracheostomy. The complications of tracheostomy were divided into early occurring during the first 24 hours, intermediate occurring from 1 to 14 days and late were seen after 14 days. Results: The early complications are hemorrhage (16%), cardiac arrest (4%), apnoea (8%) and damage to local structures (8%). The intermediate complications include displacemet and dislodgement of the tube (20%), surgical emphysema (8%), pneumothorax (4%), scabs and crusts formation (8%), infection (12%) and tracheoesophageal fistula (4%). The late complications observed in this study are tracheal stenosis (2%), difficult decanulation (8%) and tracheocutaneous fistula (2%). The commonest complications observed are displacement and dislodgement of the tracheostomy tube and hemorrhage. Conclusion: The common age group was between 61-70 years. The males were predominantly affected. The majority of the patients presented in the emergency and common symptoms were stridor and dyspnoea.

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