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Radiology
Choanal Atresia
Built from Obstetric Imaging
What’s inside
7 sections · 46 slides
Overview
- The idea in one slide
- What this deck covers
The passage that fails to open
Where the choanae sit, and what it means when they do not form
- Follow the air through the nose
- The nasal passage from nostril to throat
- Where the choana sits in the skull base
- What choanal atresia means
- 0.5–3
- Rare, but worth knowing
- How the blockage forms
- The wall that never opened
- What the blockage is made of
- Bone, membrane, or both
- One side or both
The company it keeps
Syndromes, inheritance and drug exposures linked to choanal atresia
- Rarely a lone finding
- CHARGE: the letters spelled out
- What the CHARGE letters mean
- Iris coloboma, the C of CHARGE
- When it runs in families
- Drug exposures reported in pregnancy
- What decides the outlook
How it shows up
Why a blocked nose is urgent in a newborn, and why one side can hide for years
- Why a newborn cannot just breathe through the mouth
- Signs to look for after birth
- Two very different stories
- Diagnosis is usually made after birth
What imaging can see
Faint prenatal hints on ultrasound, and the scans that settle it after birth
- Ultrasound before birth: hints, not proof
- The two prenatal clues, spelled out
- Single ballooned nostril on prenatal ultrasound
- What to notice on that scan
- Scans after birth settle the question
- Postnatal scan confirming a one-sided blockage
- What to notice on that scan
- The imaging pathway, start to finish
What can be done
Nothing before birth, an airway at birth, and surgery that is harder than it looks
- Before birth: nothing to offer
- First aid at birth: bypass the nose
- Oral airways in graded sizes
- The only definitive fix is surgery
- How surgeons reach the blockage
- Why repair is difficult
Taking it away
The short version, for the ward round and the referral letter
- “
- Key points
- Quick revision checklist
- References
- References (continued)
- References (continued)
- Suggested reading
- Obstetric Imaging: Fetal Diagnosis and Care, 2nd Edition