title: Endobronchial foreign body removed by rigid bronchoscopy after 39 years.
abstract: A 64-year-old man accidentally fell into a wood chip tank and nearly suffocated in 1970. He frequently suffered from pneumonia after reaching the age of 40. In 2009, he suffered from pneumonia again, and a chest computed tomography revealed a foreign body in the left main stem bronchus. Flexible bronchoscopy showed a wood chip lodged firmly in his bronchus. Removal using a flexible bronchoscope was attempted twice but failed. Rigid bronchoscopy was then performed under general anesthesia, and the chip was successfully extracted by cutting it in two using rigid scissors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Medicine, Nagoya Medical Center, 4-1-1 Sannomaru, Naka-ku, Nagoya 460-0001, Japan. yo-kogure@umin.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yoshihito
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kogure
authors.forename: Masahide
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oki
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Saka
mesh_terms: D000059:Accidents; D000328:Adult; D001980:Bronchi / Q000601:surgery*; D001995:Bronchography; D020680:Bronchoscopes; D001999:Bronchoscopy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000209:etiology; D012008:Recurrence; D013997:Time Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D016896:Treatment Outcome