[Diagnosis of pharyngeal and laryngeal diphtheria in adults].

142 adults with pharyngeal and laryngeal diphtheria were registered in Yekaterinburg in 1993. Of them, 136 patients recovered and 6 died. The analysis of the clinical features and diagnostic errors showed that subjects with chronic visceral diseases and alcoholics are more likely to have poor prognosis of diphtheria. Diphtheria manifested primarily with edema followed by infiltration of the mucosa, with appearance of thin transparent furs, tenderness of cervical regional lymph nodes. The typical greyish-brown thick and firm false membranes occurred only in the late stage of the disease. The features of the diphtheric croup in the adults complicated the diagnosis. These were, unlike croup in children, the vagueness of the stages of this syndrome, rapid involvement of the trachea and bronchi, mixed type of dispnea and delirious state in alcoholics. It is necessary to set up the duty of ENT specialists in the diagnostic departments of the infectious hospitals for repeated endoscopic and bacteriologic examinations of the diphtheria suspects.