A chronic foreign body in the bronchus - case presentation

The case of the chronic foreign body in the bronchus of an eight year old boy is presented. For two months the child had suffered from pleuropneumonia with hemothorax.This medical history, pulmonary radiograph, and medical status failed to indicate the possibility of aspiration of a foreign body. After eliminating numerous, exhaustive, therapeutic and diagnostic possibilities, flexible bronchoscopy under sedation was performed, which revealed the possibility of a chronic foreign body in the bronchus - in the right truncus intermedius. The boy was succesfully treated by extraction of the foreign body with a rigid bronchoscope under general anaestesia. Part of a toy - a small rubber "bullet" - has been aspirated. The authors stress the need to consider bronchoscopy in children, in whom the course of treatment for inflammatory changes in the lungs or pleura has not been succesful