A skin-lined tube as a complication of tracheostomy.

Abstract

A child who had undergone tracheostomy at 15 days of age and could not be decannulated died at 15 months of age after accidental decannulation. The larynx and cervical trachea were removed at autopsy. A skin-lined tracheostomy tract was found extending from the surface of the neck into the lumen of the trachea. This lesion explains the decannulation failure and represents a previously undescribed complication of tracheostomy.