Capps triad refers to the constellation of clinical and imaging findings in patients with a spontaneous retropharyngeal hematoma, and consists of:
- tracheal and esophageal compression
- anterior displacement of the trachea
- subcutaneous bruising over the neck and anterior chest
History and etymology
This triad is named after an American physician, Richard B Capps (1906-1976) 3 who described a retropharyngeal hemorrhage due to multiple bleeding parathyroid tumors in 1934. Interestingly, despite the ascribed eponym, Capps did not describe a triad in this paper, indeed there is no mention of anterior tracheal displacement anywhere in the article 2! This is a classic example of Stigler's law of eponymy at work.
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