Tracheal Length in Adult Human: The Results of 100 Autopsies

Abstract

CINAR, U.; HALEZEROGLU, S.; OKUR, E.; INANICI, M. A. & KAYAOGLU, S.Tracheal length in adult human: The results of 100 autopsies. Int. J. Morphol., 34(1):232-236, 2016. SUMMARY:The purpose of this study was to investigate the average tracheal length and number of the tracheal cartilages in Turkish people, with emphasis on the relationships to body height and sex. A hundred fresh human cadaver tracheas were harvested from 75 males and 25 females. Age, sex and body height of cadavers were recorded. All the neck and intrathoracic structures were removed. The tracheal length was measured between the subcricoid level to the carina in resting and maximally stretched positions. Average tracheal length and number of the tracheal cartilages were compared in different body height groups in both sexes. We found that average body height was 160±6.4 cm and average tracheal length in resting position was 8.5±1 cm (range 6.5-11 cm) in females and average body height was 168.6±5.6 cm, average tracheal length was 8.7±1.1 cm (range 7-11.6 cm) in males, average number of tracheal cartilages was 13.6±1.7 (range 10-16) in females and 13.3±1.6 (range 10-19) in males and average number of the tracheal cartilages per centimeter was 1.6±0.2 in female and 1.5±0.2 in male cadavers in resting position. Average tracheal length in male group was found to be significantly different in cadavers with body height equal or taller than 170 cm in comparison to cadavers with body height shorter than 170 cm (p <0.05). This study revealed that the average tracheal length in Turkish people is shorter than the reported length in literature. It is worth commenting that there is a considerable difference between the different races with regard to tracheal length. Tracheal length may vary with body height.

Morphometric Study of the Trachea in Human Fetuses

“…Regarding sex, it was not found significant difference between any of the studied parameters. This finding is reported from several authors [3,5,11,12,16,23,24,25].…”

“…Multiple causes seem to be in the genesis of these lesions, but most authors agree that the main determining factor is excessive tube size [15]. Also, poor placement of the endotracheal tube within the airway can lead to serious complications such as endobronchial intubation, vocal cord paralysis, and accidental extubation [16][17][18].…”

“…The incidence of tracheal post-intubation stenosis was decreased with recognition of its etiology; however, it remains the most common indication for tracheal surgery [16,19,20]. Treatment of pediatric laryngotracheal stenosis is difficult.…”

Anatomic accuracy of airway training manikins compared with humans*

“…were not statistically significant, indicating the assumption of normality is reasonable. We also compared manikins with previously published measurements, which were reported to be or assumed to be normally distributed [16,[17][18][19][20]. Here, the matrix of dissimilarities is composed of Euclidean distances calculated using the CT data [21,22] from human participants and the three manikins.…”

Respiratory simulator for robotic respiratory tract treatments

“…Anatomy literature is utilised to identify the average anatomically-correct value for the angle of tracheal bifurcation (approximately 70 degrees) [19], [14], [6], length (the average length of the left bronchus is 47.8mm for men and 43.5mm for women and the average length of the right bronchus is 15.3mm for men and 13.2mm for women) and diameter (the average diameter of bronchi in men is 12.9mm in the left bronchus and 15.2mm in the right bronchus, the average diameter of bronchi in women is 10.1mm in the left bronchus and 12.5mm in the right bronchus) [13] of the simil-bronchi component of our simulator. Similarly, the dimensions of the trachea component of the simulator are matched to the values (average diameter 17.07mm and average length 107.9mm) found in anatomy literature [3], [5], [17] and [8]. Hence the simulator system is designed to approximate a 1:1 replica of the human respiratory system.…”