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• Seventy-two infants were treated with nasal continuous positive airway pressure for one day to five weeks, and nasal deformities developed in none. One hundred thirty-six infants were treated with nasotracheal tubes and eight (6%) were found to have nasal deformities. There was a strong correlation between duration of intubation and birth weight and the presence of deformities. In no infant receiving ventilation therapy for less than six days did nasal deformities develop. The incidence of nasal deformities in infants weighing less than 1,000 g was 50%, whereas in infants heavier than 1,000 g it was 2.4%. No infant had clinical symptoms suggestive of subglottic stenosis during the first year of life. The data do not support the use of routine tracheostomy in newborn infants even after prolonged intubation. ( Am J Dis Child 134:954-957, 1980)

• A sister and brother each had epidermolysis bullosa and pyloric atresia at birth. Both died in early infancy of complications related to epidermolysis bullosa. Electron microscopic studies of skin biopsy specimens disclosed findings consistent with a diagnosis of epidermolysis bullosa letalis. The existence of epidermolysis bullosa—pyloric atresia syndrome as a distinct clinical entity with autosomal recessive inheritance is supported by the findings in these patients. ( Am J Dis Child 1983;137:449-451)