VENTILATION DIFFICULTY SECONDARY TO A TRACHEAL DIVERTICULUM

The inability to provide effective ventilation in a patient during anesthesia will have profound or fatal consequences if not detected and corrected expediently. Visual confirmation of the intratracheal passage of the endotracheal tube during direct laryngoscopy is a most reliable sign of correct placement,1 but ventilatory insufficiency or absence can still result from underlying mechanical, anatomic, and functional abnormalities. We report a patient with a unique anatomic cause of ventilatory difficulty with endotracheal intubation.