Anatom3DTrachea
Trachea · Průdušnice
Respiratory system
Looks like
The windpipe: a tube about 11 cm long and 2 cm wide, stiffened by C-shaped rings of cartilage, running from the voice box down the neck into the chest.
What it does
Carries air to and from the lungs; its lining sweeps mucus and dust up to the throat.
Keeping it well
Smoking paralyses the sweeping hairs. Choking with no sound or cough needs back blows and abdominal thrusts at once; noisy high-pitched breathing (stridor) in an adult or child needs emergency care.
Related conditions
- Acute bronchitis
- Acute respiratory distress syndrome
- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Altitude sickness
- Asbestosis and asbestos-related disease
- Aspergillosis
- Asthma
- Breathing pattern disorder
- Bronchiectasis
- Bronchiolitis & RSV
- COPD
- COVID-19
- Croup & epiglottitis
- Cystic fibrosis
- Drowning
- Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)
- Endemic fungal infections (histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis)
- Hantavirus infection
- Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- Influenza
- Legionnaires' disease
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Long COVID (post-viral syndrome)
- Lung abscess
- Lung cancer
- Measles
- Mesothelioma
- Molar pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease
- Neonatal sepsis
- Neuroendocrine tumours (carcinoid)
- Pleural effusion
- Pleurisy
- Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP)
- Pneumonia
- Pneumothorax
- Pulmonary embolism
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Pulmonary oedema
- Respiratory distress syndrome of the newborn
- Sarcoidosis
- SIADH (inappropriate antidiuretic hormone)
- Silicosis and coal workers' pneumoconiosis
- Sudden infant death syndrome
- Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma)
- Tuberculosis
- Whooping cough