Omani man was suffering for several years
KOCHI: In a rare surgery, doctors at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) here have removed a fish bone that remained in the lungs of a 37-year-old man for seven years. The patient, an Oman military service personnel, had flew in from Muscat after several hospitalisations for repeated pneumonia during the past several years. The fish bone measuring 1.5 cm x 1.4 cm tucked away within the lower lobe of the right lung was removed successfully and the pus formed around it drained out.
“It was life-threatening. A foreign body made it difficult for the person to bring out secretion. Behind the foreign body, there was pus formation and it could not come out. The lung behind it had become necrotic,” said Dr. Arun Nair, head of Interventional Pulmonary Department at AIMS. Dr. Nair said, the fish bone was never detected by doctors during earlier hospitalisations in Oman as CT scans did not pick it up.
“Removing it after such a long time was challenging, as there was excessive tissue growth around the foreign body.” The patient is due for discharge and could return to routine life after three months of complete rest, said Dr Arun Nair.
