A team of doctors at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) on Thursday, March 21, treated a nonagenarian who had accidentally swallowed her denture. They removed the foreign object after identifying its position using a video laryngoscope.
The 92-year-old woman had accidentally swallowed the denture while drinking porridge around 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20. She experienced difficulty swallowing and breathing and throat pain, according to the doctors. Her family took her to four private hospitals, where either facilities for retrieval were unavailable or consultants were not in owing to the late timings.
Around 2.30 a.m. on Thursday, they reported to the Emergency Department (ED) of the RGGGH, where she was attended to by Gomathi Karmegam, the department’s chief. ENT surgeon V.J. Vikram, who was on duty, was already attending to another patient who had ingested a chicken bone. “We evaluated the woman. She had scoliosis, hypertension, anaemia, and a low platelet count. These were added complications. We also obtained a cardiology opinion at the ED itself,” Dr. Vikram said.
The team planned the treatment and used a video laryngoscope to identify the position of the foreign object. “We found that the denture was lodged between the airway and food pipe (in the cricopharynx). In two to three minutes, we removed it with a denture removal forceps. She was under general anaesthesia,” he said. The denture measured 9 cm x 3 cm.
The denture’s sharp edge had caused a few scratches. Considering this and the age and condition of the patient, the team, which included anaesthetist J. Anandhi, decided to keep her on ventilator support for six hours, after which she was gradually weaned off of it. If removal of the denture had been delayed, it could have caused aspiration pneumonitis or perforated the oesophagus, Dr. Vikram said.
E. Theranirajan, dean of RGGGH, said the patient was discharged on Saturday at noon. N. Suresh Kumar, director, Upgraded Institute of Otorhinolaryngology, and M. Bharathi Mohan, unit chief of otorhinolaryngology, were present.
