[Descriptive study of 21,804 ENT emergencies in a third level hospital]

We present a descriptive study about 21.804 emergency patients (ENT Department) treated in our hospital between 1994 and 2000. We have seen about 260 patients every month being the otologic pathology (35.63%) the most frequent one, followed by the nasosinusal (26.65%). Individually, the epistaxis where the 13% of all cases attended. The nasal traumas (contusions and fractures) where about a 10% of the total and in a third place, the external otitis (6.84%). We estimate in more than a 60% of the patients with a simple pathology (not urgent) and in a 3% of the patients without ENT pathology when they came to emergency. We believe, like other consulted authors, that there is a high patients index coming to the Hospital, for other reasons, without a justifiable ENT emergency. That contributes to different levels, with other specialities, to the collapse of the emergencies services.