Acute epiglottitis is a emergency condition developing primarily in children to cause acute upper airway obstruction but rarely in adults. The authors have analyzed 24 cases of acute epiglottitis diagnosed in adults who were admitted at Guro Hospital, Korea University from March 1984 to September 1989. The results are as follows ; 1) The age of patients were ranging from 19 to 77 with highest incidence at 5th decade and mean age was 42 years old and the radio of M : F is 5 : 1. 2) Dysphagia(79%) is more frequent symptom than respiratory difficulty(67%). 3) For the diagnosis, clinical symptoms, indirect laryngoscopy and soft tissue X-ray of neck were used. In pharyngeal smears and cultures, 2 cases of Staphylococcus and one case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were detected and in blood cultures, no pathogenic organiasm was detected. 4) There was no significant difference in hospital days between 9 patients treated with ampicillin(5.1 days) and 15 patients treated with cephalosporin(5.8days).