Abstract

Foreign bodies in the retropharyngeal space leading to meningitis are rare. In this article, we report a 58-year-old male patient who had been suffering from neck pain for two months. Patient’s retropharyngeal space appeared bulky on indirect laryngoscopy. Computed tomography of the neck showed thickening of the retropharyngeal space and a foreign body. The patient was performed lumbar puncture due to deterioration of consciousness and temperature up to as high as 40 °C. Intravenous antibiotic treatment was started with diagnosis of meningitis and retropharyngeal abscess. No reproduction occurred in cerebrospinal fluid and blood cultures. However, the patient died on the second day of treatment. In this article, we want to emphasize that delayed diagnosis and treatment of retropharyngeal space infections can be fatal.