Doctors at AIIMS Bhubaneswar remove stitching needle from lung of nine-year-old boy

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], February 10 : The Department of Pediatrics at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar saved the life of a 9-year-old boy through a ground-breaking bronchoscopic intervention to remove a stitching needle lodged in the lungs, the hospital informed through an official statement on Friday.
According to the official release from the hospital, the successful medical intervention marks the first instance of removing such sharp foreign bodies without resorting to open surgery in any pediatrics centre in Odisha.
The patient, a 9-year-old boy hailing from West Bengal, was brought to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar after aspirating a stitching needle, approximately 4 cm in length, into the left lower lobe bronchus lateral segment of the lungs.
An expert team of pediatricians--Dr Rashmi Ranjan Das, Dr Krishna M Gulla, Dr Ketan, and Dr Ramakrishna, skillfully performed bronchoscopic interventions to extract the needle without encountering any complications, AIIMS Bhubaneswar stated in the release.
The executive director of the hospital, Dr Ashutosh Biswas, congratulated the 'dedicated team of doctors', praising their life-saving procedure.
Dr Rashmi Ranjan Das also emphasised that such a surgery could have jeopardised the boy's health, potentially requiring the removal of a portion of the lungs.
AIIMS stated that the patient, admitted for four days post-procedure, is now in stable condition and on the path to recovery.
"This innovative procedure, available at AIIMS Bhubaneswar and only a few centres across India, utilizes less invasive flexible bronchoscopy for the removal of sharp airway foreign bodies," the hospital stated further in its release.