Nasotracheal Intubation in Acute Epiglottitis

Abstract

Pointing out the serious course, with rapidly progressing airway obstruction, of acute epiglottitis in children, the authors submit a material of eight patients, seven of whom were children. Treatment was by antibiotics and prolonged nasotracheal intubation using tubes of polyvinyl chloride. The intubation proved easy to establish. Complications during and after the intubation were few and negligible, and most of the children could be extubated within the first 48 hours. The critical period in acute epiglottitis is the first 24 hours. Thereafter, the oedema rapidly subsides, the epiglottis having returned to an entirely normal state on the 5th-8th day. Since all the patients could be discharged as cured within 2 weeks, we feel that in future nasotracheal intubation should be preferred to tracheotomy in the treatment of acute epiglottitis.