Introduction: A foreign body (FB) in the upper aerodigestive tract is a fairly common encounter.
Fish bones are the commonest FB seen in adults. The commonest presentation is odynophagia.
Usually, the patient will point at the level of FB on the neck to indicate the location.
Methods: Clinical report.
Results: This case report describes a large FB in an adult with underlying infantile cerebral palsy.
Besides dysphagia, it was associated with drooling of saliva and pain in the throat region.
Conclusion: FB ingestion with complete obstruction of the oesophagus is an emergency. It may
cause total dysphagia as the passage of food is completely blocked.
Kimura disease presents as benign lesion and is commonly present among the Asian population. It
is a disease with a favourable prognosis and a peak age of onset in the third decade. It is a chronic
inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology that involves the lymph nodes and subcutaneous
tissues of the head and neck region. We report a case of a 15-year-old boy with multiple Kimura
lymphadenopathies involving the left posterior auricular region as well as the anterior and posterior
triangles of the neck.
A 68-year-old Malay man who is a rubber tapper, presented with a large painful right-sided neck swelling for 6 months, which was gradually increasing in size and associated with odynophagia, dysphagia, hoarseness and significant weight loss. He did not complain of any ear symptoms, but on further questioning, he admitted having a 3-week history of occasional tinnitus and reduced hearing on the right ear. Other ear symptoms were negative.
Unilateral vocal cord palsy secondary to thoracic aortic aneurysm is a rare occurrence. Direct compression of the enlarging thoracic aneurysm on the left recurrent laryngeal nerve causes neuronal injury of the nerve, which is manifested as hoarseness. We present a rare case of unilateral vocal cord palsy in a 60-year-old healthy gentleman caused by a large thoracic aortic aneurysm. This rare presentation, with a serious underlying pathology might be misdiagnosed or delayed. Therefore, it is important for us to have high index of suspicion in cases with a rare presentation such as this.
The upper aerodigestive tract, specifically the cricopharyngeal area, is the most common site of foreign body impaction. Anatomically, this area is the first constriction of the oesophagus. Fish bones, one of the most common foreign bodies encountered in the throat, tend to get stuck in this area. The movement of this sharp-edged foreign body upon swallowing will induce odynophagia and an acute onset of neck pain. We report a case of a healthy elderly man who complained of sudden anterior neck pain and odynophagia after eating yellowtail scad fish.
Foreign body aspiration is commonly described in infants and children. However, recently, a new
high-risk group was identified among young women, especially those from the Muslim population
who wear the traditional hair scarf. This is due to the habit of holding the scarf pin in between the
lips to free hands to adjust the scarf more easily. Talking, laughing, or coughing while fixing the
scarf may result in inadvertent inhalation of the pin into the tracheobronchial tree. We present a
case of scarf pin inhalation and the challenges encountered in managing this patient during the
successful removal of the pin via flexible bronchoscopy under fluoroscopy guidance. This particular
case was technically challenging for us as the sharp tip of the needle was pointing upward and
piercing the bronchial mucosa.
This is a case report of an 11-year old child who was suffering from rhinorrhoea for five years. As there was no history of foreign body insertion into the nose, the diagnosis of a nasal problem was not suspected. Furthermore, the initial presentation of unilateral rhinorrhoea (nasal discharge) masked the suspicion of other pathologies. The child was treated for allergic rhinitis until she presented herself to our attention whereby a rhinoscopy was performed, showing a rhinolith.
Jugular phlebectasia has been increasingly recognised with the advent of non-invasive diagnostic methods. Phlebectasia differs from varix, as it is an abnormal outward dilatation of a vein without tortuosity. It presents as a soft, compressible mass, apparent upon straining or execution of the Valsalva maneuver. The differentials for neck masses are broad, but if the swelling appears on the Valsalva maneuver, the type of mass narrows down to a laryngocele, superior mediastinal mass or phlebectasia. A simple non-invasive investigation, such as ultrasonography, is used as a diagnostic tool. We report a case of jugular phlebectasia that was suspected clinically and confirmed via ultrasound to be a vascular lesion which changed its size upon straining.
An elderly gentleman with a known history of
well-controlled hypertension presented with
a three-week history of hoarseness associated
with mild breathlessness. There was no episode
of cyanosis, no noisy breathing, and no
reduction in effort tolerance. There was also no
history of chest pain or orthopnea. He denied
any feeling of food stuck in his throat or chest,
and he had no history of choking sensations
during meals. He, however, was unable to
count from 1 to 10 in one breath, and lung
auscultation revealed reduced air entry on both
sides. A chest radiograph was then obtained. (Copied from article).
Papillary thyroid carcinoma is a common thyroid malignancy reported world wide. It affects females more commonly in the 4th to 6th decades of life. The patients usually present with a painless anterior neck mass and occasionally with lymph node involvement. We report a case of an elderly male who presented with hoarseness and hemoptysis, which warranted bronchoscopy. Biopsy of the intraluminal tracheal mass revealed the diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma. Computed tomography scan of the neck confirmed the presence of the primary lesion in the right thyroid lobe with invasion into the adjacent trachea and esophagus.
Suspension laryngoscopy is a common laryngeal procedure in Endolaryngeal microsurgery (ELMS). Oral mucosa and dental injuries are the known complications of the procedure. Nerve injury however is an infrequent encounter. We report a rare complication of lingual nerve injury which manifested as tongue numbness and altered taste following Endolaryngeal microsurgery procedure. The condition improved completely after few months of conservative management.
Cervical lymphadenopathy is a common presentation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). It can be present in the classical location of the level II or VI lymph nodes or at any other levels of the lymph nodes in the neck. NPC should be suspected when a patient presents with cervical lymphadenopathy and conductive hearing loss. A thorough endoscopic assessment of the nasopharynx should be performed to rule out this radiotherapy-curable disease at its early stage.