Vol.98No.8contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 98 No. 8 August 2005
Two Case Reports of Arytenoid Dislocation Caused by Endotracheal
Intubation which were Resolved Spontaneously
Masaki Kawabata, Masato Ushikai, Tatsuya Fukuiwa,
Kengo Nishimoto, Shoji Matsune and Yuichi Kurono
(Kagoshima University)
Arytenoid dislocation is sometimes caused by endotracheal intubation or external cervical injury. Although the efficacy of closed surgery for this disease has been reported, the procedure is sometimes unsuccessful and various open procedures are necessary to improve the symptoms such as hoarseness. On the other hand, some patients with this disease were reported to be cured spontaneously. In the present study, we reported two patients with arytenoid dislocation caused by endotracheal intubation which were cured spontaneously. The first case was a 17-year-old man who complained of hoarseness after the surgery for hypospadias under general anesthesia. Endoscopic examination revealed the dislocation of the right arytenoid toward an anterior-medial position and dyskinesia of the right vocal cord. The hoarseness was spontaneously cured and completely disappeared on the 29th postoperative day. The examination with laryngeal fiberscope showed that the right arytenoid had returned to normal position. The second case was 46-year-old man who complained of hoarseness after laparoscopic surgery under general anesthesia. Laryngeal fiberscopy showed that his right arytenoid was dislocated toward an anterior-medial position. Hoarseness spontaneously disappeared 48 days after surgery. Several investigators have reported that spontaneous cure is frequently observed in anterior arytenoid dislocation, but not in posterior arytenoid dislocation, as shown in the present study. Those findings suggest that spontaneous reduction might be expected in many patients with anterior arytenoid dislocation.
Key words : arytenoid dislocation, endotracheal intubation, spontaneous reduction