Anesthesia & Clinical Research
Open Access

Abstract

Clinical Study of the Incidence of Arytenoid Cartilage Dislocation for the Patients after General Anesthesia with Tracheal Intubation

Hideto Saigusa, Norihito Suzuki, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Taro Komachi, Osamu Kadosono, Takashi Hongou, Hidetaka Onodera, Iichirou Aino, Takashi Nakamura, Chiharu Matsuoka, Makoto Saigusa and Hiroyuki Ito

Incidence of arytenoid cartilage dislocation for patients treated or examined under general anesthesia with tracheal intubaion in one hospital had not been reported. And true incidence and mechanism of arytenoid cartilage dislocation after tracheal intubation are not investigated yet. Here, we examined retrospectively the incidence of arytenoid cartilage dislocation for patients after general anesthesia with tracheal intubaion in the Central Surgical Center of Nippon Medical School Main Hospital for two years from 2004 until 2005. The incidence of arytenoid cartilage dislocation for patients after general anesthesia with tracheal intubaion was 0.2%, and patients received cardiovasucular surgeries were the most common. The mean age of the patients with arytenoid cartilage dislocation was 70 years. It could be considered that additional medical instrumentation of the esophagus including transesophageal echocaridiography probe or upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, and prolonged tracheal intubation for more than two days should be the risk factors causing arytenoid cartilage dislocation. And calcification of the laryngeal cartilage and morphological changes of the cervical vertebrae along with aging might also contribute to dislocate the arytenoid cartilage.