Clinical Analysis of the Retropharyngeal Abscess

Choo, Moo Jin; Shin, See Ok; Hong, Sung Hwa; Yang, Seung Deok; Kim, Jeong Whan

doi:10.35420/jcohns.1994.5.1.86

J Clin Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1994; 5(1):86-93

pISSN: 1225-0244, eISSN: 2713-833X

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35420/jcohns.1994.5.1.86

원저

인후강농양의 임상적 고찰

추무진¹, 신시옥¹, 홍성화¹, 양승덕¹, 김정환¹

Clinical Analysis of the Retropharyngeal Abscess

Moo Jin Choo¹, See Ok Shin¹, Sung Hwa Hong¹, Seung Deok Yang¹, Jeong Whan Kim¹

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹충북대학교 의과대학 이비인후과학교실

¹Department of Otolaryngology, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University

© Copyright 1994 The Busan, Ulsan, Gyeoungnam Branch of Korean Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: May 31, 2020

ABSTRACT

The retropharyngeal abscess have largely been considered to be a disease of infancy, usually resulting from abscessed lymph nodes draining infections of the ears, nose, or throat. Because of their relative rarity and specific anatomical relationship, the retropharyngeal abscess may lethal due to mediastinitis, carotid artery rupture or sepsis despite appropriate antibiotics therapy and prompt surgical drainage.

Authors observed ten patients(male ; 6, female ; 4) of retropharyngeal abscess admitted in Chungbuk National University Hospital from January 1992 to January 1994. They were evaluated by retrospective clinical analysis.

The results were as follows:

Almost patients were adult above 20 years old(80%), most often in 6th decade(50%).
Most common etiology was acute upper respiratory infection(60%). Only one case was caused by odontogenic infection.
Chief complaints were sore throat(80%), swallowing difficulty(80%), and progressive neck swelling(70%). Associated symptoms and signs were fever(50%), voice·change(50%), otalgia(30%), trismus(30%) and dyspnea(10%).
Three patients had underlying disease, two patients had diabetes mellitus and one had cervical spine tuberculosis.
Computed tomography was valuable for diagnosis, decision of treatment modality, and follow-up of disease progression.
Most common pathogenic organism was hemolytic Streptococcus(41.7%), and mixed infections were observed in 2 cases.
Surgical drainage was done in 7 cases, whereas only antibiotic therapy was done in 3 cases.

Keywords: Retropharyngeal abscess; Treatment modality; Computed tomography