Spontaneous cervical and mediastinal emphysema in asthma.
Patients with mediastinal emphysema and free air in the cervical region often present to an emergency medicine department, where an otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon may be consulted for a surgical opinion. These occasions underscore the necessity that the disease be thoroughly understood and that conservative management be executed. Two patients with asthma, a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man, were found on roentgenograms to have retropharyngeal free air and mediastinal emphysema. They were treated conservatively, and both recovered rapidly.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008478:Mediastinal Emphysema / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D011859:Radiography