ABSTRACT
Background: Emergency tracheostomy remains a vital life saving procedure in advanced upper airway obstructive pathologies and in various other clinical settings where urgent alternative air passage is needed. Ingestions of hair dye powder containing PPD for self harm purpose or accidentally, is emerging as its new indication especially in young female patients
Objective: To evaluate the demographic and etiological factors underlying emergency tracheostomies in consecutive one hundred patients presenting in a tertiary care hospital
Subjects and Methods: In this case descriptive study, records of one hundred consecutive cases of emergency tracheostomies were collected and analyzed from demographic and etiologically point of view, from 1[st] January, 2012 to 30[th] September, 2013 manually as well as by using SSPS version 17
Results: Etiologically we found thirty five [35%] cases of severe respiratory distress due to kala pathar ingestion, thirty [30%] cases due to advanced laryngopharyngeal growths, twenty one[21%] due to trauma of head neck region or for assisting ventilation, four [4%] due to foreign bodies in laryngotracheal region, four[4%] cases were due to acute pharyngolaryngeal edema due to corrosive in take, four[4%] cases were due to post thyroidectomy bilateral abductor paralysis, one [1%] case was due to laryngomalacia and one [1%] case was due to acute epiglottitis male to female ratio was 1 to 1.5
Conclusion: Upper air way obstruction secondary to kala pathar ingestion is emerging as a new indication for emergency tracheostomy secondly, late presentation of upper airodigestive tract tumors, along with head neck trauma, remains a dominant indication for emergency tracheostomy