Doctor removes shrimp from woman's air tube, using low-invasive process

Local doctors removed a shrimp from the air tube of an elderly woman from Jiangsu Province through minimally invasive measures.

The woman went to the Shanghai Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, telling doctors that she had suffered a serious cough for two weeks after inhaling a small shrimp into her air tube while eating two weeks earlier.

"I thought I could cough up the shrimp by myself," she said. "But my cough became more and more serious without seeing the shrimp and I even started to have a fever. I went to a local hospital, whose doctors told me that the shrimp was stuck deep in my lungs and I may have to have major surgery to remove it as a tracheoscope might not be able to remove the shrimp."

Dr Chen Tongyu, director of the hospital's cardiothoracic surgery department, admitted the patient and arranged a CT scan, which indicated that the shrimp was in her left lung and the infection area due to the blockage had expanded, compared with the results from the hospital in the patient's hometown.

"We decided to try the tracheoscope to take the shrimp out, but there was difficulty as it was stuck so deep. If we failed to remove it, we would carry out surgery immediately," said Chen, who tried many angles to finally remove the 2-centimeter shrimp through a minimally invasive measure.

Odd items in air tube are usually those entering the trachea while eating or inhaling, and can cause complete or incomplete blockage. Complete blockage can cause serious results including suffocation and death, while an incomplete blockage can cause coughing and shortness of breath.

"A tracheoscope has become a leading tool to remove items stuck in the air tube," Chen said. "But it is important to visit the hospital soon after odd items enter the air tube for timely treatment, or the symptoms may become serious."