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Gary S. Greene, MD; Michael DellaVecchia, MD; Francis J. Shea, MD

JAMA. 1982;247(9):1318.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

SICKLE β-thalassemia, a hemoglobinopathy closely related to sickle cell disease, demonstrates vaso-occlusive phenomena similar to homozygous sickle cell anemia. We describe a patient who experienced severe laryngeal edema secondary to sludging of sickled RBCs (drepanocytes) in the capillaries and lymphatic channels in the laryngeal microvasculature. To our knowledge, this finding has not been previously reported in the literature.

Report of a Case

A 29-year-old man with known sickle β-thalassemia disease came to the emergency room with acute dyspnea on June 26, 1980, and was admitted to the hospital. Indirect laryngoscopy showed marked edema of the left arytenoid mucosa and false vocal cord. The true vocal cord was obscured by a ventricular band. The glottic opening was diminished on deep inspiration. The right side of the larynx, however, appeared normal. A regimen of 100 mg of hydrocortisone every six hours produced some abatement of the patient's symptoms. Two days after admission, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Radiology (Drs Greene and Shea) and Pathology (Dr DellaVecchia), Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Temple University Hospital, Department of Radiology, 3401 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19140 (Dr Greene).

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