Tracheal Mechanics During Bronchoscopy

The main purpose of this study is use a new type of measurement to help decide what kind of therapy would help people with a collapsing windpipe or tracheomalacia.

This study is to obtain new information about the pressures required to collapse the trachea in patients with and without obstructive pulmonary disease and to describe the relationship between pressures and airflow obstruction. This information will provide normative data not currently available and would establish whether tracheal collapse is due to tracheomalacia. The data may lead to better ways of predicting if a patient would benefit from procedures to prevent tracheal collapse.

Healthy control subjects recruited from subjects volunteering for CT or bronchoscopic studies and patients referred for evaluation of possible tracheomalacia.

• Tracheomalacia
• Tracheobronchomalacia

• COPD
  Patients with cough and/or shortness of breath who may have windpipe collapse.
• Healthy adults
  Subjects without symptoms for comparison.
• Tracheomalacia
  Patients with cough and/or shortness of breath who may have windpipe collapse.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Suspicion of tracheal collapse undergoing bronchoscopy
• Healthy control subject undergoing bronchoscopy for another purpose.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Esophageal pathology
• Tracheostomy
• inability to follow commands