A mishap that remains across the throat ... literally: a man who had not removed his denture before anesthesia swallowed it and got stuck in his throat for eight days before the doctors got there account.
This case is reported Tuesday in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports, and illustrates the need to remove his dentures before surgery. For beyond the anecdote, the consequences of this oversight were heavy for the septuagenarian: they required further operations and a blood transfusion. Consequences he was far from suspecting, he who thought he had simply misplaced his prosthesis.
Blood in the mouth
The 72-year-old retired electrician was initially operated in a British hospital (no details are given for reasons of confidentiality) to remove a minor size in the abdominal wall. Six days after the operation, he goes to the hospital again: he complains of having blood in his mouth, difficulty swallowing and hurts so much that he can not eat any solid food. Doctors put this on the account of a respiratory infection and the side effects of intubation performed during the operation. They prescribe the patient mouthwashes, antibiotics and a cortisone drug.
But after two days he comes back because the symptoms got worse. He has a hoarse voice and difficulty breathing, especially when he is lying down, which forces him to sleep sitting straight in his couch. He can not swallow the medications he has been prescribed. Doctors suspect inhalation pneumonia, a severe infection that can occur when stomach fluid enters the lungs. But there, surprise: an endoscopic examination of his throat reveals the presence of a semicircular object that caused internal injuries. This object is stuck against the epiglottis, the end of cartilage that prevents the passage of food and fluids in the trachea and lungs.
Damage on an artery
When the doctors tell him about it, the man makes the connection with his dental prosthesis, a metal plate on which are crimped three teeth of front, which he thought to have lost during his stay for the first operation. Radios show that it is this prosthesis that is stuck in his throat. The man is operated on urgently to remove the object and leaves the hospital after six days.
But his misfortunes do not stop there. In the following weeks, he has to make several trips to the hospital because of persistent bleeding.
They come from internal injuries caused by the forgotten prosthesis. They are cauterized once before another emergency operation is made necessary by new bleeding. An artery has indeed been torn due to injuries caused by the prosthesis. After these important successive blood losses, the patient must undergo a transfusion. He will have to wait six weeks for a return to normal.