Stentless endoscopic repair of congenital choanal atresia: is it enough for maintaining choanal patency?

The aim of choanal atresia (CA) surgery is to achieve bilateral nasal patency. Among the different methods of CA repair, the endoscopic transnasal approach has gained recent popularity with the advent of endoscopic instruments and techniques. This article describes our experience regarding CA repair that was done either using or not using a stent in different periods of time in our department. Between February 2006 and February 2016, a total of 29 patients aged 2 days-53 years underwent endoscopic transnasal CA repair. While in early years stents were used to maintain nasal patency, since 2010, all cases were repaired endoscopically without stenting. Of the 29 patients, 8 were excluded because of inadequate follow-up data. The mean follow-up time for the remaining 21 patients after surgery averaged 53 months (range 12-111 months). Intranasal stents were used in 5 of 21 patients for 8 out of 32 operative sides. Of the 8 stented neochoanae, 6 (75%), restenosed at a mean time of 15.2 weeks (5-24). The restenosis rate was 25% (6/24 nasal sides) in 16 patients who underwent stentless repair. In unilateral CA, 2 of 10 (20%) patients underwent atresia repair using stents and only these cases restenosed after surgery in this group. Of the 11 patients with bilateral disease, 5 (45.4%) underwent revision surgeries. In the bilateral group, 2 of 3 (66.6%) stented patients required revision surgeries, whereas 3 of 8 (37.5%) patients who underwent stentless repair relapsed. In one patient, we have experienced an alar cartilage injury intraoperatively caused by drilling. The transnasal endoscopic repair has proved to be effective and yielded long-term satisfactory results. The use of stent seems to have no advantage over a stentless repair regarding maintenance of a patent nasal airway. Patients experienced restenosis more frequently with stenting.