[Clinical and endoscopic aspects of laryngeal dyskinesia in the infant].

Laryngeal dyskinesia, also called function stridor or stridor by cordal dysfunction, has been described in older children and in adults as episodes of acute dyspnea sometimes induced by exertion and in a particular psychological context. We report 5 cases of infants with stridor due to defective abduction of the vocal cords and normal laryngeal opening which occurred at rest or at awakening after anaesthesia. The common point was the clinical course of the stridor comparable with stridor which occurs during rapid respiration (crying) seen at birth then disappearing during the first 18 months of life, and also clinically observed gastro-oesophageal reflux which was confirmed by oesophageal pH measurements. Two infants had malaise with vagal hyperactivity. Disappearance of the stridor had no times relationship with the initiation of anti-reflux treatment and disappeared progressively near the end of the first year of life.