In-Office Balloon Dilation for Idiopathic Subglottic Stenosis: A Pilot Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Importance Idiopathic subglottic stenosis is a debilitating and recurrent disease, often requiring reintervention. Balloon dilation is a well-recognized, minimally invasive treatment to alleviate symptoms, and is typically performed in the operating room. In-office balloon dilation in the awake patient has rarely been reported, and may obviate the need for general anesthesia in this patient population. Objective This study aims to detail the safety and efficacy of in-office balloon dilation for mild to moderate subglottic stenosis. Design Mixed-methods study. Setting Single tertiary-care institution in Montreal, Canada. Participants and Intervention All adult patients with Cotton-Myer Grade I-II idiopathic subglottic stenosis undergoing in-office balloon dilation between June 1, 2022 and August 1, 2023 were prospectively recruited. Main Outcome Measures Pre- and post-procedure validated dyspnea and voice scales, airway diameter and spirometry values were obtained. Patient- and physician-reported adverse events were thoroughly documented. Results Eleven patients underwent in-office balloon dilation during the study period (F:M 10:1, mean age 55.8 years). The median Dyspnea Index and voice handicap index-10 scores both significantly decreased following the procedure. In-office balloon dilation improved airway patency, with an estimated median of 40% to 10% stenosis (median difference −25%, 95% CI (−45, −15), P = .003). The normalized peak expiratory flow percentage significantly increased from a median of 62% to 99% (median difference 27%, 95% CI (19, 40), P = .004). The median time to regular activities was one day. Six patients having previously undergone the procedure under general anesthesia indicated a preference for in-office dilation. There were no severe adverse events. Conclusion and Relevance In-office balloon dilation is a safe and effective option for the management of mild-moderate idiopathic subglottic stenosis, with demonstrated improvement in both patient-reported outcomes and objective measures.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".