Tracheal & Bronchial Disorders Treatment Program Surgical Services

Specialists in NYU Langone’s Tracheal and Bronchial Disorders Treatment Program offer advanced surgical procedures to manage tracheal and bronchial disorders. Our doctors can discuss whether surgery is the right option for you.

Robotic-Assisted Surgery

Our surgeons are among the most experienced in the world at using robotic-assisted surgery to manage tracheal and bronchial tumors, including carcinoids, tracheobronchomalacia (TBM), tracheal stenosis, and tracheoesophageal fistula. NYU Langone is one of the few medical institutions in the Northeast to offer a minimally invasive surgical approach for these conditions, helping to decrease the patient’s length of stay in the hospital and allowing for a faster, less-painful recovery than conventional open surgery.

Tracheal Surgery

For tracheal surgery, our doctors consider whether a traditional open procedure or minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery is the best approach for you. Open surgery may include making incisions in the neck, also known as transcervical surgery, or an incision in the chest, which is called a sternotomy. Depending on the location of the tracheal condition, either one of these approaches might be used or combined. If the underlying problem is in the chest, our doctors are likely to use robotic-assisted surgery. Our thoracic surgeons and head and neck surgeons work together to provide the most appropriate surgical approach to manage tracheal conditions.

The surgery for TBM includes sewing a mesh to the back side of the airway to strengthen and remodel its size and shape, preventing collapse.

Our surgeons may remove and reconstruct portions of the trachea to manage tracheal stenosis. For a tracheal sleeve procedure, surgeons make incisions to remove the narrowed portion of the trachea and then reattach the healthy upper and lower parts of the trachea to restore airflow. Tracheoplasty is a procedure to manage longer sections of narrowed airway. Our surgeons divide and make incisions in two sections of the narrowed portion of the airway. The surgeons slide one section into the other, creating a shorter but wider trachea.

Tracheoesophageal fistula may be managed with surgery to close an abnormal opening between the trachea and the esophagus.

Surgery may also be a treatment option for tracheal tumors. Doctors remove the tumor and a small border of surrounding tissue and then connect the healthy ends of the trachea to each other.

Our team has published articles on techniques to repair or replace damaged tracheal tissue.

Bronchial Surgery

Our thoracic surgeons may perform a bronchial sleeve resection and reconstruction to remove bronchial tumors. Surgeons make incisions in the bronchus, also known as a bronchial tube, to remove the tumor, along with some surrounding tissue. They then reconnect the healthy parts of the bronchus to each other. Our surgeons may use minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery to manage bronchial tumors, an approach rarely offered at other institutions, where open approaches are the norm. Robotic-assisted surgery allows for faster recovery, less pain, and an earlier return home than after an open bronchial surgery, improving patients’ quality of life.