화학 소작술로 치료한 새성 기형 5례

Treatment of 5 Branchial Cleft Fistulas with Chemical Cauterization

Branchial cleft fistula is one of the most common congenital neck masses. Most of the branchial cleft fistula patients complain of reucrrent neck infection or abscesses even with appropriate previous treatment. The traditional treatment of these patients was agreed to be a complete surgical removal of whole fistula tract with infection control. However this surgical treatment has risks of injuring important major vessels o. nerves adjacent to the track and difficulties in dealing with previous recurrent infections and scars of previous procedures such as drainage or incomplete surgical excision. Today, obliteration of internal opening with chemical or electrical cauterization has been introduced as a new way of treating branchial anomaly with a less invasive procedure. In this article, we reports 5 cases of branchial anomalies treated with TCA(trichloroacetic acid) chemical cauterization.