[Acute dyspnea in childhood].

Acute dyspnea is one of the most frequent pediatric emergencies in the medical practice. The severity of the condition ranges from mild and self-limiting to severe and life threatening. The primary care physician must recognize the clinical symptoms of impending respiratory distress in a child and, especially, in an infant or very young child who is not yet able to communicate verbally, so that the appropriate therapy can be initiated as quickly as possible and, therefore, to fundamentally influence the development of the condition. The most important clinical causes of dyspnea are croup, epiglottitis, foreign body aspiration, and bronchial obstruction.