Bhubaneswar: AIIMS Bhubaneswar has saved the life of a 9-year-old boy by removing a four-cm-long stitching needle lodged in the child’s lungs, doctors of the hospital said Friday.
Paediatricians of the medical establishment performed a bronchoscopic intervention to remove the foreign body from the lungs of the boy hailing from neighbouring West Bengal.
Bronchoscopy is a procedure to look directly at the airways in the lungs using a thin, lighted tube (bronchoscope) which is put in the nose or mouth. It is then moved down the throat and windpipe (trachea), and into the airways.
This achievement marks the first instance of removing such a sharp foreign body without resorting to open surgery in any paediatrics centre in Odisha, the doctors said.
The team of paediatricians, including Dr Rashmi Ranjan Das, Dr Krishna M Gulla, Dr Ketan, and Dr Ramakrishna, performed the bronchoscopic interventions to extract the needle last week.
“The entire process, taking approximately an hour, spared the young patient from a major life-threatening surgery (thoracotomy),” Dr Rashmi Ranjan Das said.
Thoracotomy could have jeopardised the boy’s health, as it would require the removal of a portion of the lungs.
The patient, admitted for four days post-procedure, is now in stable condition and on the path to recovery.
AIIMS Bhubaneswar Executive Director Dr Ashutosh Biswas extends his heartfelt congratulations to the dedicated team of doctors, praising their life-saving procedure.
PTI