You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case Reports: Learning from unexpected outcome (positive or negative)
Undiagnosed laryngocele: an airway emergency
  1. Saurabh Trivedi1,
  2. Sunaina Tejpal Karna2,
  3. Kaushal Singh Baghel2 and
  4. Pooja Thaware2
  1. 1Anaesthesiology, Chirayu Medical College and Hospital, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
  2. 2Anesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sunaina Tejpal Karna; drtejpal{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Laryngoceles are rare dilated laryngeal saccules that can present as acute airway obstruction and lead to airway emergencies. A man, presented to the emergency room, with difficulty in breathing and change in voice. An unevaluated pulsatile swelling was present on the left side of neck. Since, the patient was in stridor, an awake fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FOB)-guided intubation was planned with readiness for emergency tracheostomy, if needed. On FOB, an edematous supraglottic area with a narrowed glottic opening was observed. The procedure was abandoned and a surgical tracheostomy was performed to secure the airway. Postoperative contrast-enhanced CT neck revealed a huge laryngocele in left cervical region. We recommend that a high index of suspicion for presence of laryngocele should be kept in mind when a patient presents with stridor with pulsatile neck swelling. Timely aspiration of laryngocele may help in amelioration of the respiratory distress avoiding emergency tracheostomy.

  • anaesthesia
  • ear, nose and throat/otolaryngology
  • primary care
  • ultrasonography

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2021-248126

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors ST: concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, manuscript review, guarantor. STK: concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, manuscript review, guarantor. KSB: concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, manuscript review. PT: concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, manuscript review.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Case reports provide a valuable learning resource for the scientific community and can indicate areas of interest for future research. They should not be used in isolation to guide treatment choices or public health policy.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.