CHOP’s Neonatal Airway Program provides your child with the most comprehensive airway evaluations. We assess complex airway issues associated with prematurity, genetic syndromes, congenital birth defects, vascular tumors, and other vocal cord and tracheal airway problems.

Comprehensive airway evaluations

Experts from the Neonatal Airway Program conduct a full complement of bedside evaluations on your child — from your child’s nose all the way down the main bronchial trees in your child’s lungs.

For some tests, we can evaluate your child at the bedside, such as performing a flexible laryngoscopy to assess your child’s voice box.

More detailed tests — such as a microlaryngoscopy and bronchoscopy — are performed while your child is under sedation in the operating room.

We also perform specialized low-dose CT angiogram with 3-D reconstruction and cardiac MRI to evaluate the entire airway and adjacent vascular structures when necessary. This technology has proven to be invaluable in diagnosing vascular rings and defining head and neck tumor complexity and overall airway anomalies that are otherwise difficult to appreciate by conventional imaging.

Your child’s evaluation may include some of all of the following tests, depending on their condition:

• Ultra-low-dose CT angiogram with 3-D reconstruction
• Flexible laryngoscopy
• Endoscopy
• Microlaryngoscopy
• Bronchoscopy
• Swallow studies
• Upper GI studies
• Cardiac MRI

Personalized treatment

Once we’ve fully evaluated your child, our multidisciplinary team works with your family and the referring physician to create an individualized treatment plan for your child.

If your infant needs surgery, they will benefit from some of the most experienced airway surgeons in the world who perform the latest techniques and airway reconstruction procedures.

Airway surgeries include:

• Slide tracheoplasty for tracheal stenosis
• Airway balloon dilation
• Choanal atresia and pyriform aperture repair
• Supraglottoplasty
• Tracheostomy
• Laryngotracheal reconstruction
• Excision of supraglottic and subglottic cysts
• Laryngeal cleft repair
• Endoscopic lysis of laryngeal webs

Continuity of care

Depending upon your child’s treatment, their follow up care will likely be handled by our Center for Pediatric Airway Disorders, which can help your family with issues related to home technology, ventilation and tracheostomy care.