Removal of an Impacted Foreign Body from The Upper Airway with a
Gastroscope in a Tertiary Hospital in South-West Nigeria – A Case Report
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Abstract
Foreign body ingestion and food bolus impaction are encountered commonly in clinical practice and are a common
endoscopic emergency. A wide variety of objects could be ingested which could get impacted, and the site of
impaction is commonly the oesophagus but can also be the airway depending on the nature of the substance
ingested, the age of the patient and the presence of a neurologic disorder. The predominant clinical features of
a patient will depend on the site of impaction of the foreign body; the airway or the oesophagus. Endoscopy
remains the gold standard for the diagnosis and management of foreign body ingestion of which there are different
modalities and equipment types. For foreign body in the airway laryngoscopy, tracheoscopy and bronchoscopy
are the modalities indicated and there are also different types of retrieval devices some of which include standard
biopsy forceps, retrieval graspers, retrieval forceps and polypectomy snares. The management of foreign body
ingestion cuts across different specialties including Pulmonology, Otorhinolaryngology, General surgery,
Cardiothoracic surgery and Gastroenterology all of which are involved in various different endoscopic procedures
and their endoscopy equipment have a lot of similarities and in certain instances they can be adapted to perform
varying roles. Foreign bodies in the airway require urgent endoscopic removal because it can become rapidly life
threatening with associated high morbidity and mortality, therefore the available equipment should be immediately
deployed to save lives. We present a case of foreign body impaction in the upper airway (larynx) that was removed
with a flexible video Gastroscope using a polypectomy snare