Date:16/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/16/stories/2008081657830100.htm

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Open safety pin removed from infant’s food pipe

R. Sujatha

CHENNAI: Doctors at the Institute of Child Health, Egmore, recently operated on an eight-month-old infant to remove an open safety pin lodged in its oesophagus for over a month.

The girl child, Govarthana Priya, from Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, was brought to the city in a critical stage and put on ventilator during the surgery. She had breathing problems, fever and cough for over a month.

Her chest X-rays showed an enlarged heart. Doctors realised that the chest cavity was filled with pus and was pressing down on the heart.

They removed the pus by inserting a tube. An X-ray taken after the procedure showed an open safety pin near the end of the food pipe. The sharp end was embedded in the heart. The pin was also a little rusted. “We realised that it would require another surgery,” said P. Moorthy, head of cardio-thoracic surgery at ICH.

“We knew that endoscopy was out as the pin could tear the oesophagus. We had to open the child’s stomach and the pin was pushed into the stomach where the tissues are thick and the damage would be minimum and then removed,” said paediatric surgeon Philip Chandran. The first surgery took 45 minutes and the next lasted 35 minutes.

“The child may have tugged at the chain and the pin may have come loose. The child might have swallowed it,” Dr.Moorthy explained.