Skip to main content
  • Meeting abstract
  • Open access
  • Published:

Point-of-care ultrasound detection of tracheal edema caused by smoke inhalation

Background

Smoke inhalation is the leading cause of death due to fires. When a patient presents with smoke inhalation, prompt assessment of the airway and breathing is necessary. Point-of-care ultrasound is used for the rapid assessment of critically-ill or injured patients. To the best of our knowledge, the use of point-of-care ultrasound for the detection of tracheal edema caused by smoke inhalation has never been reported in the English literature.

Case presentation

A 54-year-old male was transferred to the emergency department with an increasingly evident cough, carbonaceous sputa and rhinorrhea about six hours after inhaling smoke caused by a fire in his locked bedroom. On examination, he was alert. His oxygen saturation was 94% on 2 liters of oxygen by nasal cannula, with a respiratory rate of 25 breaths/min, and his heart rate was 106 beats/min, his blood pressure was 151/100 mmHg and his body temperature was 37.3°C. He had no surface burns on the face and no edema or erosion in the oral cavity. He had hoarseness without stridor. His breath sounds were positive for expiratory wheezes. Chest X-rays indicated narrowing of the trachea. Laryngoscopy showed light edema and erosive findings on the supraglottic region. Bedside point-of-care ultrasound revealed hypoechoic thickening of the tracheal wall, which was consistent with tracheal edema. The thickening was confirmed by a computed tomographic scan. The patient was carefully monitored with preparation for emergency airway management and was treated with supplemental oxygen, an aerosolized β2 adrenergic agonist and a single intravenous administration of methylprednisolone. The symptoms were subsequently relieved, and reexamination by ultrasound after two days showed remission of the wall thickening.

Conclusion

Point-of-care ultrasound may be a useful modality for the quick diagnosis and follow-up of tracheal edema caused by smoke inhalation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kameda, T., Fujita, M. Point-of-care ultrasound detection of tracheal edema caused by smoke inhalation. Crit Ultrasound J 6 (Suppl 1), A26 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-6-S1-A26

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-6-S1-A26

Keywords