Foreign Body Removal

As unlikely as it may sound, foreign body removal is actually a very common procedure in emergency departments, after-hours clinics, and pediatrician offices. A foreign body is any object that is foreign or not naturally part of the human body. When a foreign body has been lodged into a human orifice and cannot be removed easily, medical attention is usually sought by way of a foreign body removal.

 

Any place on or in the body has the potential to be inflicted with foreign bodies, though some locations are more likely places to be affected than others. For example, typical places for foreign bodies to occur that require medical attention are the nose, the ear, the cornea of the eye, and the rectum; however, foreign body removal may be necessary for rents in the skin caused by trauma or from the trachea after an object as mistakenly been inhaled rather than swallowed (aspiration).

 

Children are by far more likely to require medical services for the removal of foreign bodies. During exploration of the orifices in their face, kids often attempt to place objects in their nose or ear. If you consider the matter from the child’s perspective, food and drink enter the mouth three times a day as do countless other items such as pacifiers and teething rings, why should the nose or ear be any different? For the most part, objects that children are able to reach are usually larger than can be inserted in the ear or nose therefore many foreign body removal procedures are avoided by this means of prevention. For smaller objects, often bits of food that were in the process of being eaten, the object can be inserted, by not extracted. If left in its place, the foreign body is prone to local infection. While children are often the patients of foreign body removal from the nose and mouth, adults with mental retardation and handicap are also vulnerable.

 

 

Metal workers and those in construction or demolition are particularly susceptible to foreign bodies in the cornea of the eye. The cornea is the area in front of the iris or colored part of the eye. Foreign body removal from this area usually requires the help of an ophthalmologist to perform the removal using special lamps and eye drops.

 

Foreign body aspiration can occur at any age, but is most common in children, the elderly, patients with physical handicap or debilitation. People with long standing drug and alcohol abuse are particularly susceptible to foreign body aspiration. Foreign body aspiration occurs when a small object enters the trachea and bronchial tubes—the breathing tubes that supply air to the lungs. A foreign body in this location may cause the lung that is distal (downstream) of it to collapse, causing significant pain and shortness of breath. Foreign body removal of an object that has been aspirated may require the services of a pulmonologist or critical care physician. This form of foreign body removal requires the patient to have a bronchoscopy in which a thin tube with a camera and small surgical instruments is advanced down into the lungs to the site of the foreign body. The lungs are visualized on a television screen and the object is extracted with an instrument similar to fine forceps. Once the foreign body is removed, the lung usually reinflates spontaneously, reversing the collapse.