Upper airway surgery
At the Breadstone Clinic we can perform a number of upper airway surgeries including:
- ‘Tie-back’ (prosthetic laryngoplasty)surgery
- Hobday surgery
- Tension palatoplasty by cautery
- ‘Tie-forward’ surgery
- Epiglottal entrapment surgery.
The most common upper airway surgery performed is the tie back procedure. This is used to treat recurrent laryngeal neuropathy a condition which causes one sided paralysis of the larynx. This paralysis leads to narrowing of the airway and abnormal respiratory noises described as whistling and roaring. During the surgery a suture is placed to ‘pull back’ the paralysed part of the larynx and thus open up the airway.
This surgery is usually combined with a Hobday procedure. The operation consists of removal of small pocket-like soft tissue structures to ‘smooth out’ the air flow through the larynx. This procedure leads to a reduction in the abnormal noise and improves the horse’s exercise intolerance.
Tension palatoplasty and tie forward operations are both used to treat dorsal displacement of the soft palate. In this condition the soft palate temporarily flips into an abnormal position and restricts their airway. This condition usually affects racehorses and can cause them to suddenly slow down towards the end of a race.