Key result
A 25-year-old man developed diffuse alveolar hemorrhage following tonsillectomy under general anesthesia, likely due to barotrauma, which resolved completely with medical intervention.
Case Report (n=1)
No
Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage is a rare but life-threatening complication that can occur due to barotrauma from general anesthesia, potentially exacerbated by pre-existing alveolar damage from chronic snoring.
Clinicians should consider diffuse alveolar hemorrhage in post-anesthesia hypoxemia; this case extends barotrauma reports but leaves open causal mechanisms.
Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH) is an acute, life-threatening event. The blood-gas barrier must be very thin to allow gas exchange and is therefore subjected to high mechanical stresses when the capillary pressure rises. In general anesthesia, inhaled gases cause high mechanical stresses, and thus DAH occurs under certain conditions. We describe a case of inferred postoperative DAH. A 25-year-old man had an acute episode after undergoing a tonsillectomy for snoring. During surgery, no problems occurred and no marked bleeding was observed. After removal of the endotracheal tube, however, the patient had severe cough and hemoptysis. The patient was treated with an antihemorrhagic agent and antibiotics. He recovered after 1 week. Chronic snoring likely caused the alveolar damage in this patient and intubation led to DAH. The patient presented with a benign course that regressed spontaneously with medical intervention.
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Kim et al. (2012) conducted a case report in Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (n=1). Tonsillectomy under general anesthesia was evaluated on Clinical course of diffuse alveolar hemorrhage. A 25-year-old man developed diffuse alveolar hemorrhage following tonsillectomy under general anesthesia, likely due to barotrauma, which resolved completely with medical intervention.
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