NEW DELHI: An eight-year-old child’s undetermined case of ‘pneumonia, persisting for 10 days, was finally traced to a chocolate wrapper she had swallowed weeks ago, found stuck above her lungs, doctors said.
The peculiar case was reported at Aakash Healthcare, Dwarka. The doctors were clueless of the cause of her condition as the chocolate wrapper was not diagnosed in any of the procedures, including the CT scan and the chest X-ray.
“She had complained of a cough and fever which continued for 10 days. Investigations showed patches in her lungs. However, since her cough was dry, we couldn’t ascertain which pathogen caused her pneumonia infection. Finally, we performed bronchoscopy. What initially seemed like a typical case of respiratory infection took an unexpected turn, revealing a toffee wrapper that was stuck, obstructing the airway,” said Dr Akshay Budhraja, pulmonologist at the hospital.
“The child and family were unaware how the child swallowed or aspirated the wrapper,” the doctor added. The hospital said that a multi-disciplinary team of doctors performed a two-step treatment process, bronchoscopy and Argon Plasma Coagulation.
“Deep sedation with short-acting general anesthesia was employed, ensuring the patient was comfortable during the bronchoscopy. Antibiotics and steroids were administered postoperatively to manage the foreign body (wrapper) reaction and promote recovery,” Budhraja added.
According to the hospital, the case challenged the conventional age associated with foreign body aspirations, emphasizing the need to consider such possibilities in older pediatric patients too.