Tracheo-bronchial foreign bodies: our experience at a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Background:</span></strong>Tracheo- bronchial foreign bodies have always posed a challenge to the ENT surgeon as they present with varied symptomatology ranging from a simple cough and fever to more grave respiratory distress. It requires a strong suspicion, early diagnosis and timely intervention to reduce the overall morbidity and mortality .This study was undertaken to highlight our experiences in handling cases of tracheo- bronchial foreign bodies (FB) at our setup.</p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Methods:</span></strong>It is a retrospective case series study conducted in S. Nijalingappa Medical College between January 2011 and January 2015. </p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Results:</span></strong>Most commonly affected were children between 1year to 3years of age. Chronic cough and wheeze were the commonest presenting symptoms. Vegetative foreign body was found to be the commonest variety of foreign body. The mortality rate in our study was 4.7% (n=3).</p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Conclusions:</span></strong>A good clinical acumen, team work, early diagnosis and timely intervention are all needed to reduce the overall mortality and morbidity associated with tracheo- bronchial foreign bodies.</p>

Clinical profile of tracheo-bronchial foreign body inhalation at tertiary care center

“…Also Meena et al found cough (83.33%) as most common symptom and Suligavi et al found chronic cough and wheeze as the commonest presenting symptoms. 6,8 In our study 40% had symptoms from 5 days to 2 weeks duration followed by >2 weeks (30%) whereas minimum 10% were in <24 hrs followed by 20% in 1 to 5 days. Because we had taken suspected cases the patients were treated at lower level first then refer to tertiary center so longer duration patients were more.…”

“…Similarly, Mukherjee et al and Suligavi et al found vegetables were the most common FBs and whistles from small plastic toys were the single most common non organic FB whereas Nagaraj et al the most common FB extracted was betel nut in 47% of the cases. [8][9][10] We observed 10% patients with pneumonia, 4% had granuloma and 2% had bronchospasm. Also, Wolach et al found pneumonia (the commonest complication) developed before and after bronchoscopy in 28% of the children.…”

“…6 Higher proportion were found by Wolach et al studied 127 children and found 81% of the children were less than 3 years of age and Suligavi et al noted that most commonly affected were children of 1 year to 3 years of age. 7,8 Whereas Mukherjee et al found among 94 patients 70.2% i.e. 66 were within 5 years of age and most were within 2-3 years of age and Nagaraj et al found 88% of the patients were children below the age of 12 years.…”