Spontaneous Tongue and Pharynx Hematoma during Oral Anticoagulant Therapy

Oral anticoagulant therapy is considerably important to prevent thromboembolic complications. Oral anticoagulant use has become more common in medical conditions such as deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism and in patients with prosthetic cardiac valve and atrial fibrillation. During anticoagulant therapy, bleeding complication rate is 2-5.2%. Intracranial, genitourinary, skin and gastrointestinal hemorrhage are most frequently observed. Most of the cases with upper respiratory tract obstruction are retropharyngeal, sublingual and rarely laryngeal hematomas [1-3]. These complications can be controlled mostly with conservative methods. However, some cases may require endotracheal intubation and emergency tracheotomy. Pharyngeal hematomas may cause various clinical manifestations according to hematoma size, location and formation rate.