Intubation in the Patient with Congenital Absence of Epiglottis: A case report / 대한마취과학회지

ABSTRACT

A 27-yr old female patient who had a lumbar herniated nucleus pulposus was scheduled to undergo a laminectomy. In the past history, she has suffered from frequent upper respiratory infection and muffled voice. When we tried to intubate the patient for general anesthesia by routine method, we could not find the epiglottis and vocal cord. Fortunately we could intubate sucessfully through the folds were composed of hypertrophied aryepiglottic muscle and arytenoid cartilage between the tongue base and pharynx. In the postoperative period, we made observation of anatomical structure around the vocal cord by fiberoptic laryngoscope. We confirmed a congenital absence of epiglottis, hypertrophy of aryepiglottic fold and arytenoid region, elongated larynx and a large false vocal cord.