A Tanned Stent

While travelling abroad in 2006, the patient had an episode of acute respiratory distress of unknown aetiol-ogy (endoprosthesis obstruction or migration), which was managed by a large incision tracheostomy. This pro-cedure was technically difficult, since the endoprosthesis was still in place, and resulted in a major loss of tracheal and cutaneous tissue. Upon his return to France, a new, longer tracheal endoprosthesis was inserted (70 mm), in order to cover the tracheal and cutaneous gap as well as the subglottic, suprastomal stenosis.Figure 1 shows a cervical outside view of the endopros-thesis, which was implanted 37 months ago. Figure 2