2.1 Clinical data
A retrospective study reviewed hospital records of 51 subjects with DNSI
who were admitted to the Department of Otolaryngology- Head and neck
surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University
from November 2017 to October 2019 (Table1), including 26 males and 25
females with an average age of 54.82 years old (range: 24-89 years old).
The average length of stay was 17.55 days (range: 3-87 days). There were
25 cases (49.0%) with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 5 cases with
hypertension, 2 cases with hematological diseases and 1 case with
panniculitis. 34 cases underwent tracheotomy. Exclusion criteria:
peritonsillar abscess, patients with pharyngeal leakage or esophageal
fistula, and patients with infection secondary to malignant tumor. This
study was approved by the local ethics committee.