After a fish meal, the woman coughed and had difficulty breathing for a year.

Ms. NTKA (65 years old, from Nam Dinh) came to Bach Mai Hospital (Hanoi) for examination with symptoms of cough that lasted for a year. Accordingly, she often had persistent coughs, phlegm, difficulty breathing, went to many medical facilities and was diagnosed with bronchial asthma, treatment did not improve.

At Bach Mai Hospital, the patient underwent a chest CT scan that revealed a foreign object in the left lower lobe bronchus. Immediately afterwards, the doctor performed a flexible bronchoscopy to remove the foreign object. The entire lining of the patient's left lower bronchus was now edematous, congested, with a lot of pus and bleeding, and the foreign object was deep in the bronchus. The patient had many episodes of hypoxemia, making it difficult to remove the foreign object.

After that, the respiratory specialists of Bach Mai Hospital decided to treat with antibiotics, actively fight inflammation and intervene with a rigid endoscope to remove the foreign object. The intervention was performed in 30 minutes in the operating room and the foreign object, a bone, was removed from the bronchus. After that, the patient had less difficulty breathing, coughed less, and ate and lived normally.

Associate Professor, Doctor Phan Thu Phuong, Director of the Respiratory Center - Bach Mai Hospital said that bronchial foreign bodies are foreign objects that fall into and get stuck in the patient's bronchi.

Foreign objects left in the bronchi often cause serious consequences if not detected early and treated promptly. Many patients immediately have typical symptoms of foreign body intrusion such as choking, swallowing, difficulty breathing, cyanosis. However, some patients only have transient symptoms leading to not paying attention, gradually causing coughing, wheezing, phlegm, fever, recurrent pneumonia, lung abscesses, etc.

Choking on foreign objects is common in daily life such as fish bones, sapodilla seeds, peanuts, etc. Therefore, Dr. Phuong recommends that when eating, people should pay attention not to eat in a hurry, chew thoroughly, and swallow slowly to prevent foreign objects from entering the airway. When patients have symptoms when eating such as choking, prolonged coughing, they should go to the doctor immediately to promptly detect foreign objects in the airway, avoiding potentially dangerous complications.

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