Stokes symptom or Stokes collar - swelling of the neck, and sometimes the face, arms, upper chest and shoulder area, accompanied by swelling of the skin veins; a sign of compression of the superior vena cava with a mediastinal tumor. Patients have a characteristic appearance: the head seemed to be planted directly on the body, a sharp cyanosis of the face and swelling of the jugular veins, sometimes pronounced superficial veins of the chest. This symptom is also observed with pericarditis and mediastinitis , sometimes observed with severe heart failure (right) and tricuspid valve insufficiency . Differential diagnosis of these conditions is possible on the basis of an anamnesis and other objective symptoms caused by damage to various organs of the mediastinum, in particular by means of fluoroscopy and auscultation of the heart [1] .
A Stokes symptom is also called a pronounced pulsation in the abdomen to the right of the navel - a possible sign of acute enteritis [2] .
Described by the Irish physician William Stokes (1804-1878).