Foreign Body Aspiration in Adult, What Would You Expect? Case Report

Abstract

Foreign body (FB) aspiration is an uncommon but potentially life-threatening event, while the majority of accidental aspiration events occur in children, adults represent up to 25% of cases. When the diagnosis is not established immediately, retained FBs may lead to recurrent pneumonias, bronchiectasis, recurrent hemoptysis, pneumothorax, lung abscesses, pneumo-mediastinum, or other complications. Extraction of aspirated FBs should be undertaken as soon as possible to alleviate acute symptoms and prevent long term complications. FB aspiration is slightly more common in males. The vast majority of adult patients with FB aspiration have obvious risk factors for aspiration including neurological deficits with swallowing difficulties or altered mental status, neuromuscular disease, intoxication, or have an iatrogenic cause. Still, 10% of adult patients with FB aspiration have no known risk factors. Our case is 35 y old male patient who was brought to Accident and Emergency department after being found unresponsive in the street, on arrival to hospital his GCS was 9/15 with pin points pupils , spontaneous breathing and hemodynamic stable . CT brain was unremarkable Patient failed to respond to repeated doses of naloxone and his GCS dropped with episode of apnea so was intubated and mechanically ventilated. Follow up chest x-ray show opacification of the right lung, and ABG reveled hypoxia with respiratory acidosis in spite high ventilator settings, So CT chest was the best option which reveled bronchial obstruction mostly due to foreign body. Urgent bronchoscopy was done and unexpectedly obstruction was due to chewing gum pieces, aspiration of four large pieces of chewing gum, following that patient remained in the ICU for 2 days where chest x-ray show significant improvement and he was weaned and extubated successfully.