A Case with Foreign Body Difficult to Extract in the Bronchial Ramus

Abstract

An infant of 2 year and 8 month old male came for an examination of a accidentally aspirated marking needle which was supposed to have been staying for about 9 months in the left bronchial ramus. Repeated direct bronchoscopy failed to find the foreign body, and surgical operation of the chest was for a time considered to be necessary. By devising a simple fluoroscope with a portable X-ray apparatus, however, the authors favorably succeeded in extracting the half of the needle with the globular head. The rest of the needle was expelled with sputa 6 days later.
Though the fluoroscopic manipulation is indispensable to the extraction of a some bronchial foreign body, we can substitute the modern biplane apparatus by a simple monoplane fluoroscope of the portable apparatus behind the bronchoscopic table.