Complications of tracheotomy
No patient developed accidental airway problem such as acute airway
obstruction or orotracheal tube obstruction. Patients with tracheotomy
tended to have longer duration of overall hospital stay (41.6 days) than
those without tracheotomy (25.5 days). The mortality was higher but not
statistically significantly (p = 0.290) higher in the tracheotomy
group (Table 3). In the early tracheotomy group, trachea-cervical
fistula shown as continuously draining pus from trachea to neck
developed in one patient (Table 5). Mean hospitalization duration was
56.3 days in the late tracheotomy group, longer than 30.5 days in the
early tracheotomy group. It might be due to more mortality rate in the
early tracheotomy group.