Maldonado, Fabien, Tomassetti, Sara, & Ryu, Jay H. (2015). “Orphan tracheopathies.” In Lung Disease: A Clinical Approach (pp. 73-89). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2401-6_6
In respiratory medicine, diseases affecting the central airways—the trachea and main bronchi—have received less attention than diseases of the lung tissue itself. This may be due to the mistaken belief that these conditions are rare and usually not serious. Another common misconception is that severe cases can only be treated with complex, high-risk surgery, which can be dangerous for many patients.
Tracheal diseases can arise on their own or as a result of other underlying conditions, including inflammation, infections, or tumors. Today, many central airway diseases can be effectively treated using a variety of endoscopic procedures—minimally invasive techniques that have grown dramatically in number and sophistication over the past decade.
Because of these developments, central airway diseases present both unique challenges and opportunities for respiratory doctors, and they have played a major role in the growth of the subspecialty of Interventional Pulmonary Medicine.
Fig.6.1. The flow volume loop in fixed central airway obstruction reveals blunting of both the inspiratory and expiratory portions of the loop