ABSTRACT
Diseases which compromise airways alter breathing, speech and swallowing and the consequences are severe effects on psychology, socialization and employment. Around the world, the incidence of primary tracheal cancer is approximately 0.1 in every 100,000 persons per year (Honings et al. 2010) and there are 136,000 new cases of laryngeal cancer each year (Duque et al. 2007), and a smaller, but severely impaired, group of patients with nonfunctioning airways due to benign disease and trauma (Nouraei et al. 2007). Presently, there are no good conventional solutions to treat patients with advanced structural disorders of the trachea and larynx.
