2026 Volume 62 Issue 2 Pages 156-161
Airway foreign bodies can be potentially lethal due to airway obstruction and require emergency intervention. In this case report, a combination of flexible bronchoscopy and fluoroscopy is described for removing an airway foreign body. The patient, a 1-year-old girl, was found to have accidentally swallowed cylindrical pellets of cat litter and was referred to our hospital after a chest computed tomography scan performed elsewhere revealed a 13-mm-diameter cylindrical foreign body in her right main bronchus. Conventionally, rigid bronchoscopy is mainly used for removing tracheobronchial foreign bodies, but because the foreign body was seen moving between the right main bronchus and the trachea on fluoroscopy, flexible bronchoscopy was performed to locate the pellet. A basket catheter was inserted through the bronchial fiberscope, the basket was positioned over the pellet under fluoroscopic guidance, and the pellet was removed. Flexible bronchoscopy should be considered for removing airway foreign bodies located beyond the tracheal bifurcation under fluoroscopic guidance for the reliable and safe removal of a moving foreign body.
