Abstract P-612: BIODEGRADABLE AIRWAY STENTING – IS IT A TEMPORISING OR A LIFE-SAVING STRATEGY?

Abstract

Aims & Objectives: Vondrys et al have reported their first experience with the biodegradable airway stents (BAS) in children in the United Kingdom (1). They concluded that BAS offers avoidance of both permanent stenting and short-term, expensive ventilator support. Our aim is to report our experience of airway stenting with the BAS (Ella-CS) at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, UK. Methods We report the use and value of BAS (Ella-CS) in 4 ventilator dependent children with tracheo-bronchomalacia or extrinsic airway compression, aged between 3 months to 3 years admitted to a tertiary paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in 2016 and 2017. Results After careful evaluation and work-up by a multi-disciplinary airway team, 4 patients underwent endo-bronchial stenting. Table 1 illustrates the diagnosis, procedure details and the outcome of all the 4 patients. 3 of the 4 patients were extubated and discharged out of PICU shortly after the intervention and the 4th patient had significant reduction in the ventilatory pressures. 2 of the 4 patients have been discharged home and are doing well. Figure 1 illustrates the Ella biodegradable airway stent. Figure 2 illustrates the imaging of the patient no.1 - Pre-stenting on the left and with BAS in situ on the right.Conclusions BAS are not just a temporising strategy to avoid ventilator-dependency and save expensive PICU resources, but could also be life-saving. More experience with BAS and long-term follow-up studies are essential.