OBJECTIVETo explore the safety and the efficacy of bronchoscopic argon plasma coagulation (APC) combined with CO2 freezing for the treatment of airway granulation hyperplasia after pediatric airway stenting.

METHODFrom April 2010 to December 2012, APC combined CO2 cryotherapy was performed for granulation tissue hyperplasia in 8 children after airway stenting, their clinical data, complications and postoperative outcomes and follow-up data were analyzed.

RESULTFive of the 8 cases were male and 3 female, when stenting their age was 2 to 17 months, the average age was (8.63 ± 5.50) months. Granulation tissue hyperplasia appears in the range of bracket covering, common to both ends of the stent. The time from stentinging to find hyperplasia of granulation tissue was 20 days to 19 months. As a result, in 30%-100% of children airway narrowing was found. We applied APC treatment when the bronchoscopy found hyperplasia lesions, then we used CO2 cryotherapy, i.e., freezing was persisted for 1 min twice and more, then the probe was moved until the APC burning area was entirely frozen, dyspnea in children were significantly improved and two cases of atelectasis patients' lung were completely re-expanded. Eight patients had varying degrees of postoperative low to moderate fever, three cases had a small amount of active bleeding after APC treatment, hemostasis was achieved after topical application of endoscopic injection of epinephrine or reptilase bleeding and freezing, no complications occurred with CO2 cryotherapy. According to the efficacy criteria in this article, the result was significantly effective in 6 cases, effective in 1 case, and partially effective in 1 case.

CONCLUSIONAPC combined with CO2 cryotherapy may be one of the optional methods that rapidly eliminates granulation tissue and remove the airway obstruction, so it can be used in treatment of pediatric airway' benign lesions.