croup - Symptoms, Causes, Treatment, Prognosis

A hollow crowing noise during respiration and on coughing. It occurs in children due to swelling and narrowing of the vocal cords due to infection with one of several viruses. It may arise following a cold. In severe cases, respiration may be compromised.

Croup
Classifications and external resources

ICD-10	J05.0
ICD-9	464.4

Croup may also refer to the rump of a quadruped (see croupier).

Croup (sometimes referred to as croup syndrome or laryngotracheobronchitis) is a respiratory disease which afflicts infants and young children, typically aged between 3 months and 5 years.

Symptoms

Croup is characterized by a harsh 'barking' cough, stridor (a high-pitched sound heard on inhalation) and fever.

The 'barking' cough of croup is diagnostic.

In diagnosing croup, it is important for the physician to consider and exclude other causes of shortness of breath and stridor, such as foreign body aspiration and epiglottitis.

Causes

Croup is most often caused by parainfluenza virus, primarily types 1 and 3, but other viral and possibly bacterial infections can also cause it.

The inflammatory response to the infection causes the respiratory distress, not the infection itself.

An entity known as spasmodic croup also occurs, due to laryngeal spasms.

Treatment

The treatment of croup depends on the severity of symptoms.

One of the simplest ways to treat or help with croup is to inhale cool mist.

Mild croup with no stridor, or stridor only on agitation, and just a cough may simply be observed, or a dose of inhaled, oral, or injected steroids may be given.

Moderate to severe croup may require nebulized adrenaline in addition to steroids.

Prognosis

Viral croup is a self-limited disease, but can very rarely result in death from complete airway obstruction.