• Georgios Peltekis, Dimitrios Palaskas, Dimitrios Anyfantakis, Emmanouil K Symvoulakis, and Dionysios E Kyrmizakis.
• ENT Department, General Hospital of Veroia, Greece.
• Folia Med (Plovdiv). 2012 Jul 1; 54 (3): 57-61.

AbstractThroat pain is one of the most frequent complaints prompting patient visits to healthcare professionals. Primary care physicians being the first contact point are frequently encountered with symptoms such as sore throat and odynophagia. However, high level of diagnostic uncertainty exists when the oropharyngeal examination is normal despite patients' complaints of severe pain. We present four Caucasian Greek patients, two males aged 47 and 57 years and two females aged 32 and 47 years respectively admitted to an Ear Nose and Throat department of a general hospital, with severe throat pain and initially normal oropharyngeal examination. This case series highlights the necessity for a high level of suspicion on the part of the primary care physicians when facing patients complaining of severe throat pain since their symptoms may indicate conditions such as supraglottitis, lingual tonsillitis or pemphigus vulgaris. A careful clinical examination, including an indirect laryngoscopy, is required especially when the initial oropharyngeal examination is normal.

14 keywords...

hide…