Laryngotracheobronchitis: 2 years' experience with racemic epinephrine.

A relatively new form of treatment of laryngotracheobronchitis, administration of racemic epinephrine by intermittent positive-pressure breathing, was begun in 1973 in the pediatric unit of a large community hospital. A review of 2 years' experience with this treatment, compared with the experience of the 3 years prior to its introduction, has shown that it has reduced significantly the necessity for tracheostomy, to nearly zero, and the duration of hospital stay. A total of 119 children (33.15% of those admitted) received this treatment, the average number of treatments required being 1.8. There were no important complications of treatment and no deaths.