Acute External Laryngeal Trauma: Experience with 112 Patients

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to promote early recognition, expeditious evaluation, and judicious management of acute external laryngeal trauma. A retrospective chart review was performed of 112 cases that were managed at a Medical College of Georgia tertiary care hospital by the senior author (E.S.P.). Patients were classified by the time of their presentation, the severity of their injury, and the treatment protocol followed. The clinical outcomes of airway, voice quality, and deglutition were retrospectively reviewed. For voice outcomes, in the delayed treatment group, only 27.7% of patients had a good result, as compared to a 78.3% good result in the early treatment group. Similar differences were demonstrated regarding the airway. In the delayed treatment group, only 73.3% had good airway function, as compared to 93.3% who had good airway function in the early treatment group. Ninety-nine percent of all patients had a good result for deglutition. We conclude that expeditious diagnosis and intervention reduce the incidence of suboptimal clinical outcomes, and with timely and appropriate application of diagnostic and management protocols, the majority of patients will be successfully decannulated (97%) with functional speech (100%) and normal deglutition (99%).