One more time:
Tracheal Collapse can occur when intubating a dog with a trach tube that is too big, and it causes damage to the trachea (can stretch it in places) which causes it not to be rigid enough to maintain an open airway. Visualize a vacuum cleaner hose...very rigid but if you step on it you can smash it and restrict the air flow. The hose flexes back but may be weakened at that point. Windpipes look just like little see-through white plastic vacuum hoses, though not quite as strong.
There is research being done at the University of Tennessee to come up with a better material to use to repair the windpipe of dogs with Collapsed Trachea (in some Yorkies this is a congenital condition- they are born with it). So far surgeries have not been very successful long term, and they have been using materials used for repairing human tracheas, but these are to big (adjustments are made by the surgeon) and bulky causing eventual catastophic failure a few months after implantation. |