Article Text
Summary
Supraglottitis is a potentially life-threatening condition. It is now uncommon due to the Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccination and is more recently caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, S. pyogenes, H. influenzae non-type B, H. parainfluenzae, Staphylococcus aureus and Pasteurella multocida. Very rarely, it can cause necrotising supraglottitis/epiglottitis, and this has been reported in immunocompromised individuals. We present a unique case of multipathogenic supraglottitis causing laryngeal fibrinoid necrosis in an immunocompetent patient. During his admission, the patient was critically unwell and required surgical intervention and tracheostomy. However, he made a full recovery with no persisting morbidity. We believe that this was owed to the aggressive antimicrobial therapy, timely surgical management of the disease process and the patient’s immunocompetency.
- Ear nose and throat/otolaryngology
- Infectious diseases
- Otolaryngology / ENT
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Footnotes
Contributors TK and MD: identification of case and significant contributions to discussion and conclusions. JDC: completed literature review, contributed to discussion and conclusions and formatted manuscript. JJA: lead author; lead the contributions to all sections and collected images for figures.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.