BACKGROUND Retropharyngeal hematoma is a rare form of pharyngeal pathology and can present as acute airway obstruction. Among the many causes of retropharyngeal hematoma, thoracic aortic rupture is extremely rare. METHODS AND RESULTS A 78-year-old female with airway obstruction by a retropharyngeal hematoma secondary to thoracic aortic aneurysm rupture was successfully treated by total aortic...

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute, self-limited vasculitis of unknown etiology that occurs predominantly in young children (≤5 years of age). We herein report the case of an 18-year-old Japanese man with a history of incomplete KD during infancy; later, despite an initial diagnosis of retropharyngeal abscess, he was ultimately diagnosed with retropharyngeal edema associated with recurrent KD. A...

A 6-year-old boy presented with 4 months of right neck pain that, along with increasing swelling over the previous 15 days, was associated with fever, night sweats, and dysphagia. Physical examination showed diffuse right neck swelling (Figure 1A). Serological tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were negative. A lateral cervical spine X-ray revealed widening of the retropharyngeal spac...

Calcification around the cervical spine is thought to be relatively rare case, among these conditions the calcification at the longus colli muscle is called retropharyngeal tendinitis and only several cases were reported in the literature. In this disease, the three characteristic clinical features are acute severe posterior neck pain without any trigger, severely restricted range of motion, an...

The purpose of this paper is to develop an algorithm for the diagnosis and treatment of cervical phlegmons in order to increase the diagnostic accuracy, to reduce the intra and postoperative risks and complication rates and to increase the number of cases with restitutio ad integrum. This is a retrospective clinical study on 21 patients diagnosed with cervical phlegmon. The study group consists...

Retropharyngeal abscess most commonly occurs in children. When present in adults the clinical features may not be typical, and associated immunosuppression or local trauma can be part of the presentation. We present a case series of five adult patients who developed foreign body ingestion trauma associated retropharyngeal abscess. The unusual pearls of each case, along with their outcomes, are ...

A 44-year-old male smoker presented with productive cough, sore throat and dyspnea for 2 weeks. He had no fever but had lost about 8 kg in body weight in the recent 2 months. He was referred to a tertiary hospital where a physical examination revealed face, neck and right arm swelling. A chest plain film showed right upper lung consolidation and upper mediastinal widening (Figure 1). Chest comp...

INTRODUCTION A retropharyngeal abscess is a potentially life-threatening infection in the deep space of the neck, which can compromise the airway. Its management requires highly specialized care, including surgery and intensive care, to reduce mortality. This is the first case of a gas-forming abscess reported from this region, but not the first such report in the literature. CASE PRESENTATIO...

Abstract Background The retropharyngeal space is a deep compartment of the head and neck region which extends from base skull to mediastinum, between posterior pharyngeal wall vertebral muscles, delimited laterally by carotid sheaths. Pathological processes are rarely encountered, generally isolated painless masses often cystic, they usually originate branchial arch anomalies, but only in rare ...

Retropharyngeal haematoma is a rare and potentially fatal cause of airway obstruction. The treatment of retropharyngeal haematoma is contentious. We report a case of an 84 year old woman on aspirin and warfarin who developed a retropharyngeal haematoma following minor blunt head and neck trauma. The patient presented insidiously with Capp's triad and developed delayed airway obstruction necessi...