Doctors of Respiratory Medicine department at Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai successfully removed a small-sized LED bulb of a toy car from the left lungs of an eight-month-old baby girl.
As the parents noticed that the girl had a difficulty in breathing, they visited Dindigul Medical College Hospital. Doctors gave medications for cold.
As the child still experienced trouble in breathing, an x-ray was taken. As the results showed the presence of a metal object in the size of a safety pin, the doctors at the hospital referred the baby to the Paediatric Surgery department at GRH.
The team headed by Dr. Kuppusamy, Head of Paediatric Surgery department, took a CT scan on the baby. The scan confirmed the metal object in the left lung.
R. Prabhakaran, Professor and Head, Respiratory department, said that as the conventional procedures to remove objects from the lung could not be performed on the child as using local anaesthesia was complicated.
Since general anaesthesia was also not possible considering the narrow valves of the baby, the doctors after analysing the health condition of the baby used laryngeal mask airways method to avoid complications.
“As the last effort before jumping into any complicated procedures to remove the material, as a try, we used bronchoscopy which is an endoscopic technique of visualising the inside of the airways for diagnostic and therapeutic purpose,” Dr. Prabhakaran said.
Bronchoscopy method, though, previously used at GRH to remove food objects stuck in the lungs of toddlers (aged above two years), this was the first time the technique was used on an eight-month-old baby, he noted.
Only when the object was removed from the lung, the doctors discovered that the object was a LED bulb used in a remote control toy car. The baby would have swallowed the object while it was playing with the toy, the doctors said.
“Since the baby did not act uncomfortable, the parents were also unaware of the incident. Thankfully, instead of chocking the airways completely, it just showed a reaction as a breathing trouble,” the doctors added.
As the child’s health progressed well, she was discharged on Monday.
Published - November 05, 2024 09:12 pm IST
