"Occult" posterior laryngeal cleft.

A previously undescribed deficiency of the posterior cricoid at the midline, wherein the mucosa overlying this deficiency is intact, is described. Clinically this presents as a variety of subglottic stenoses wherein the narrowing is primarily in the transverse subglottic diameter; the symptoms are, therefore, those of airway obstruction not laryngeal incompetence. It is suggested that this deformity has been previously overlooked by laryngologists and pathologists by virtue of a postmortem routine in which the larynx is routinely split in the posterior midline. Demonstration in these cases was by serial horizontal section of the intact, unsplit, whole larynx.