Case History:
The patient is a 9-year-old boy. 6 years ago, he swallowed detergent, a strong alkaline substance by accident. Although he expectorated the substance immediately, he appeared lip edema and burning of the mouth. Immediately sent to the hospital, gastroscopy showed esophageal injury. Antibiotics and glucocorticoid were given intravenously. Because the patient could not ingest food orally, the nasogastric tube was inserted to guarantee nutritional support. After 7 days of treatment, the patient showed no symptoms such as hoarseness, dysphagia, or dyspnea, and was discharged after the nasogastric tube was removed. Pharyngeal stenosis was not found on examination at this time. One month after the injury, the patient developed respiratory symptoms such as dyspnea and cough. Tracheoscopy revealed significant pharyngeal stenosis, but surgery was not performed due to the patient’s young age and the symptoms were not obvious.
Before admission this time, the symptoms worsened progressively of dyspnea, wheezing, slurred speech without obvious causes, while hoarseness, dysphagia and other symptoms didn’t occur. At admission, fibrolaryngoscopy showed a defect of the upper epiglottis, adhesion of the epiglottic stump to the posterior pharyngeal wall, and a small hole remaining on the right side. Aryepiglottic folds, false and true vocal folds were smooth (Fig 1).