Retropharyngeal tendinitis: three probable cases with an unusually low epicentre

Retropharyngeal tendinitis is a rare but underdiagnosed disorder. The clinical picture is characterized by increasingly severe pain in the upper neck occurring within 1 or 2 days and with pain aggravated by swallowing and head movements. Acute-phase roentgenograms show substantial soft-tissue swelling anterior to the vertebral bodies, C1 to C4, often accompanied by amorphous calciferous deposition below the anterior tubercle of the atlas. The course is benign, the patient being asymptomatic after 1 or 2 weeks. I briefly describe three cases which were characterized by severe pain in the mid-cervical spine and radiologic findings of soft-tissue swelling anterior to the vertebral bodies, C2-C6. These cases were probably due to acute tendinitis of the longus colli muscle, although located at a lower level than in previously reported cases of retropharyngeal tendinitis.