Revealing the needs of children with tracheostomies

Tracheostomies were performed mostly in very small children and comorbidities were very common. Once a tracheostomy was performed in a child in most cases it was not removed before a year. The most common early complication was stoma infection followed by accidental decannulation. The most frequent late complication was granuloma and suprastomal collapse. Airway abnormalities were very frequent in this population and therefore need to be assessed before attempting decannulation.