Resection of tracheal tumor under cardiopulmonary bypass: a case report

Anesthesia for low tracheal tumor surgery presents many challenges: conventional anesthetic techniques would be catastrophic if one attempts to insert a tracheal tube which may cause a complete obstruction of the airway; on the other hand, tracheotomy usually can not pass beyond the obstruction. So how to get an adequate gas exchange as well as a good surgical access is what we must resolve during operation. In recent years, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is not only used in cardiac surgery, but also becomes an attractive technique to facilitate non-cardiac surgery. 1-4 Here we report an emergent operation for resection of low tracheal tumor which was successfully performed under partial CPB in July 2004.