The hazards of airway surgery

Abstract

Airway surgery provides a unique challenge in that the airway is shared between the anaesthetist and surgeon. Patients may experience airway obstruction, often at extremes of age, following aspiration of a foreign body by the young or tumour-related impediments in the elderly which are complicated by smoking-related heart and lung disease. The threat of hypoxia, retained carbon dioxide and complete airway obstruction is present pre-, intra- and postoperatively.