Massive postoperative swelling of the tongue: manual decompression and tactile intubation as a life-saving measure

Massive swelling of the tongue due to haemorrhage is a rare but potentially fatal complication secondary to trauma, surgery, tumour invasion or uncont rolled anticoagulant therapy. This article presents a report of bleeding fr om the left lingual artery secondary to elective excision of a lipoma of th e floor of the mouth and subsequent life-threatening upper airway obstructi on. In this case, the upper airway obstruction was managed by manual decomp ression of the tongue and tactile nasal intubation. To our knowledge this c ase provides the first description of using this method in life-threatening upper airway obstruction caused by massive haemorrhagic swelling of the to ngue. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.