I have never performed an intra-tracheal injection; however, I have accidentally gavaged trachea with small volume (while attempting to get contrast into GI system) and I can tell you the mice do not do well.
If you are interested in lung cancer models, would a simple IV injection of the cells suffice? Most lung cancer lines (indeed many cell lines) will form very nice pulmonary nodules upon intravenous administration.
My message coming so in late ... I guess that you already published your article and I would be very happy in receiving a pdf reprint.
I have indeed difficulties to understand how is it technically possible to make an INTRA-tracheal development of a cancer in mice.
There are numerous lung cancer models in rodents (intrapenchymal development with tracheal destruction), but I would be actually interested in knowing how to have an intra-tracheal one.
I am attaching here some articles and I apologize if you have them already.