2017 Volume 151 Pages 56-57
Compensatory hypertrophy of the lingual tonsil can develop after extraction of the palatine tonsil, causing dyspnea and a feeling of suffocation. Sometimes, such patients present with physical airway obstruction, and in some cases, surgical treatment is warranted for the enlarged lingual tonsil. Our patient reported herein presented with inspiratory dyspnea caused by compensatory hypertrophy of the lingual tonsil 20 years after she had undergone enucleation of the palatine tonsil passed after palatine tonsil. We performed extraction of the lingual tonsil using an FK-WO retractor and obtained good results. We present the case herein.
The patient was a 54-year-old woman who presented to our department with the chief complaint of dysphagia, mild dyspnea and dysphonia. The patient had undergone bilateral palatine tonsil enucleation as treatment for sleep apnea syndrome 20 years earlier. The endoscopic findings at the initial diagnosis consisted of a markedly enlarged lingual tonsil with constriction of the pharyngeal cavity at the site. Moreover, a portion of the enlarged tonsil hung down like a pendulum and invaginated into the glottis during inspiration. The patient was diagnosed as having airway stenosis due to compensatory hypertrophy of the lingual tonsil. Because of the difficulty in intubation caused by the enlarged lingual tonsil, we undertook airway maintenance by tracheotomy and induced general anesthesia of the patient. Then, we carried out resection of the enlarged tonsil by Transoral Video-Laryngoscopic Surgery (TOVS) using the FK-WO retractor. We also resected a portion of the epiglottis, because the transformed epiglottis has already become useless. At present, one year since the surgery, there has been no recurrence of the symptoms and the airway continues to be maintained well too.
There have been no other case reports of inspiratory airway obstruction caused by hanging down into the airway, like a pendulum, of a part of an enlarged lingual tonsil.
