BHUBANESWAR: Doctors at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital used a unique technique to remove a gemstone bead stuck in the windpipe of a nine-year-old boy.
With acute respiratory distress, Krishna Nahak of Ganjam district was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. He was first attended by Dr Radhamadhab Sahu, an expert in ENT and skull base surgery.
When the boy was playfully chewing a necklace of gemstone beads, the string snapped accidentally and one of the beads found its way deep into the right bronchus through the windpipe.
“The primary attempt to retrieve the foreign object failed as the forceps could take hold of the shiny gemstone. Though an open thoracic surgery was planned initially, it was challenging as the patient’s airway was severely compromised,” Dr Sahu said.
The doctors later decided to use a very thin Fogarty embolectomy catheter to retrieve the gemstone bead. After the catheter was successfully passed through the hole of gemstone bead, the balloon inflated and the gemstone was removed using a bronchoscope.
“The apneic oxygenation anaesthesia given in the high-risk case was a huge challenge as the child was not maintaining saturation,” cardiac anaesthetist Dr Sreeharsha Suman Satpathy said.