Died from a foreign body from a shampoo package entering the lungs.

07/04/2022 06:02 GMT+7

Foreign body in the patient’s lungs.

Patient named LTC 41 years old, living in Long Dien Dong commune, Dong Hai district, Bac Lieu province was hospitalized because of high fever. Especially, about 20 days after the day of admission, Ms. C. constantly had a cough and high fever, so her family took her to a local private clinic for antipyretic injections.

The family brought them to the provincial hospital and could not find the cause, so they were referred to Cho Ray Hospital. The doctor found the culprit was sapodilla seeds from the patient’s lungs. Fortunately, delay can be life-threatening. The patient said that he inhaled this granule from ten years ago and did not expect it to remain in his lungs for so many years.

Master, Doctor Pham Thi Van Thanh – In charge of the bronchoscopy room, Department of Endoscopy, Cho Ray Hospital, said that the hospital regularly receives cases of foreign bodies entering the bronchi. The alarming thing is that the patient does not know that it is only when the doctor picks up the foreign body that he remembers that he has been choking on the foreign body.

For example, most recently a 28-year-old female patient was working as a worker in Binh Duong. This female patient had a history of hemoptysis 2 years ago. Recently, the situation of coughing up blood is increasing, the new patient comes to Cho Ray Hospital for examination. On CT of the chest, the doctor found that the patient had left bronchiectasis. The patient was indicated for bronchoscopy.

Dr. Van Thanh recounted that when bronchoscopy, the doctor discovered that there was a multi-layered foreign body located in the left lower lobe bronchus. It is very difficult to pick up the foreign body because the foreign body is slippery. It took two times for the doctor to pull the foreign body out.

When the foreign body was removed, the doctor examined the foreign body, which was a candy shell with layers in the left bronchus, blocking the left lower lobe lung, causing prolonged inflammation, bronchiectasis, and hemoptysis.

According to Dr. Van Thanh, because the candy shell is clogged, it causes post-obstruction. This condition leads to repeated inflammation that dilates the patient’s bronchi. In this case, if the foreign body cannot be removed, it can cause lung abscess, pustules and possibly necrosis of that lung area and high risk of death.

Dr. Van Thanh said that the most common foreign bodies are sapodilla seeds or sapodilla, there are cases of patients biting off shampoo bags leading to foreign bodies entering the bronchi, causing macrophage syndrome and then disease. macrophage death due to a foreign body in the bronchi for too long.

The cases of sapodilla seeds cause severe congestion, the patient has symptoms earlier than the cases of candy shells, shampoo bags.

2 weeks ago, a patient came in because of a persistent cough this year, tested for Covid-19 many times because the patient coughed a lot, and the chest X-ray was normal. When the epidemic decreases, the patient goes to the doctor. During bronchoscopy, the doctor found a foreign object in the lung.

When there was a foreign object pulled out, the patient assumed that this was the duck’s neck bone that the patient had choked on 1 year ago. Later, the patient saw an infiltration syndrome but did not think that the bone had entered the lung. For nearly a year, the patient was continuously diagnosed with suspected Covid-19 so he was tested for Covid-19 many times.

To avoid foreign objects entering the bronchi, Dr. Van Thanh said that everyone needs to take preventive measures. When eating try not to laugh, when eating fruits with dangerous seeds such as sapodilla seeds, carefully remove the seeds first. Sapodilla seeds are easy to slip when entering the lungs, but difficult to remove.

When choking on food, having an intrusive syndrome such as a patient coughing a lot, then having difficulty breathing, wheezing, it is necessary to go to the hospital immediately to avoid foreign objects causing complications in the airways, the patient may have lung abscess, cough. bleeding and even death.

Khanh Chi