Swelling and Elongated Uvula with Unilateral Vocal Cord Paralysis after General Anesthesia

Swelling and elongated uvula and vocal cord paralysis are very rare complications of general anesthesia. This report illustrates that these rare complications might occur together after general anesthesia. An adult male patient was operated for glomus tumor in left hand middle finger and six hours after the operation acute respiratory distress was diagnosed. There was no drug allergy in his medical history and breathing difficulty had not been observed after the operation which had been performed under general anesthesia ten years ago. Medical therapy with dexamethasone combined topical epinephrine was applied and complete recovery was obtained without surgery.