Tracheal agenesis with bifurcating common airway arising from midesophagus.

Tracheal agenesis (TA) is distinctly rare, an almost invariably fatal respiratory tract anomaly that tends to coexist with non–randomly occurring malformation complexes grouped by the following acronyms: VATER (vertebral, anal, tracheoesophageal, and radial-renal anomalies), VACTERL (VATER plus cardiovascular and limb defects), and TACRD (tracheal agenesis/atresia, complex congenital cardiac abnormalities, radial ray defects, and duodenal atresia) [1,2]. While ventilation may be possible via the esophagus, there is no operative therapy for this disorder, and most cases of TA die shortly after birth. We report a variant of TA characterized by a common airway segment with bifurcating bronchi arising from the midesophagus and arranged in a series, similar to a case described by O’Neill and Morecroft in 1999