Yen-Ming Chen, Chien-Chin Hsu and Kuo-Tai Chen
Foreign body-induced epiglottitis is rare and may not display typical manifestations of infectious epiglottitis. Besides, except for airway management and antibiotics treatment, the foreign body should be removed and accompanied complications, such as epiglottic abscess, also require adequate drainage. We reported on a patient admitted for epiglottitis and airway obstruction. Computed tomographic scan of the neck revealed an epiglottitis and a suspected retained epiglottic foreign body. The patient recovered completely after the removal of the foreign body and drainage of the abscess surgically. In the discussion, we describe the usefulness and limitations of laryngoscopic examination and computed tomographic scan of the neck for the evaluation of airway obstruction. If there is any suspicion of non-infectious causes of epiglottitis, or the response to treatment is inadequate, we suggest using varied diagnostic tools liberally to discover the accurate etiologies of epiglottitis.