BEST PRACTICE
Paediatric stridor
Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK
Correspondence to:
For correspondence:
Mr Sam Majumdar
Department of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Sheffield Teaching Hospital, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, S10 2JF, UK; sammajumdar@doctors.org.uk
Keywords: croup; laryngomalacia; stertor; stridor; subglottic stenosis
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Stridor can be defined as a high-pitched noise resulting from turbulent airflow through a partially obstructed upper airway. It may be associated with any phase of respiration, therefore, monophasic or biphasic, inspiratory or expiratory. Any obstruction at the level of the glottis or of the subglottis causes inspiratory stridor. Supraglottic obstruction will usually cause either stridor or more commonly stertor, a low pitched snoring type of noise. Obstruction of the extrathoracic trachea tends to cause biphasic stridor while obstruction of the intrathoracic trachea usually causes expiratory stridor. Partial obstruction of the upper airway at the nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal level produces stertor. This is frequently associated with sleep. Stertor must be differentiated from true stridor. A stridor misdiagnosed for stertor will disguise the underlying cause and put the airway at risk of developing complete obstruction.
Stridor is a serious clinical sign that warrants immediate attention. The primary task in managing a
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in ADC Online
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
