Doctors retrieve gemstone bead stuck from trachea of child by new technique

Doctors have retrieved a gemstone bead stuck from the trachea of a child by a new technique.

Doctors at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital have used a new technique to remove a gemstone bead stuck in the windpipe of a nine-year-old boy.

Krishna Nahak of Ganjam district was playfully chewing a necklace of gemstone beads when accidentally the string snapped and one of the beads got stuck into the right bronchus through the windpipe.

The boy was in acute respiratory distress and his family sought medical help at several hospitals without any relief. They finally brought the child to IMS and SUM Hospital where Dr. Radhamadhab Sahu, an expert in ENT and Skull Base surgery, examined the patient.

“The primary attempt to retrieve the foreign object failed as neither the optical forceps nor any other forceps in the medical armamentarium could take hold of the weighty shiny gemstone,” Dr. Sahu said.

“The only option available in this type of case is an open thoracic surgery accompanied by very high possibility of mortality as the patient’s airway was severely compromised,” he said.

However, after an extensive discussion with the Cardiac Anesthetist, Dr Sreeharsha Suman Satpathy and other core surgical team members, it was decided to use a very thin Fogarty Embolectomy Catheter to retrieve the gemstone bead which was a difficult task because of the heavy weight of the bead.

The Fogarty Catheter was passed into the hole of the gemstone bead which was difficult to negotiate as the object was lodged deep inside the distal bronchus and the small hole in the bead was moving with respiration.

After the catheter was successfully passed through the hole, the balloon was inflated distally and the gemstone removed using a rigid bronchoscope within a time span of 12 minutes.

The apneic oxygenation anesthesia given in this high-risk case was a huge challenge as the child was not maintaining saturation, the cardiac anesthetist, Dr. Satpathy said.

“The procedure was a success because of the application of Fogarty Catheter and the child was not required to undergo an open thoracic surgery,” Dr. Sahu said.