LXXXVII Intratracheal Goitre

Abstract

all by invitation) BIRMINGHAM, ALA.The first case of intratracheal goitre was reported in the German literature in 1875 by Ziemssen who treated a thirty year old male whose chief complaint was dyspnea. The patient suffered from an intratracheal tumor measuring 2x1x1 cm which communicated at the level of the cricoid cartilage with an exterior nodular goitre. The first successful resection of this lesion was performed by Heisse in 1888, on a 25 year old German male who had an intratracheal tumor at the level of the first tracheal cartilage. The lesion was dealt with by tracheal fissure and curettement. The first mention of this lesion in the American literature is by Freer in 1901, who described the lesion in a thirty-two year old female whose intratracheal tumor was treated by endoscopic coagulation, with tracheostomy required. Theisen, in 1902, observed a thirty-five year old female with an intratracheal lesion which produced dyspnea and which was treated by tracheal fissure.The sporadically occurring reports in the literature are similar in content and implication and the story is a repeated one, of patients, usually young, complaining of dyspnea and presenting, on physical examination, an intratracheal or intralaryngeal tumor, the surgical management of which is fraught with some degree of difficulty.The present case is of a thirty-eight year old Negro female who was admitted to the University of Alabama Medical Center with a history of hemoptysis for two days prior to admission. Within the past several months, she had had two previous episodes of hemoptysis. Her past history revealed a thyroidectomy for nodular goitre, thirteen years prior to the present admission. Respiratory wheezing accom-