The AIIMS Bhubaneswar has successfully saved the life of a nine-year-old boy by performing a ground-breaking bronchoscopic intervention to remove a stitching needle lodged in the left lung.

The achievement marks the first instance of removing such sharp foreign bodies without resorting to open surgery in any paediatrics centre in Odisha.

“The young patient, hailing from West Bengal, was brought to AIIMS Bhubaneswar after aspirating a stitching needle, approximately four cm in length, into the left lower lobe bronchus lateral segment of the lungs. The entire process, taking approximately one hour, spared the young patient from a major life-threatening surgery (thoracotomy),” the AIIMS said in a media release.

The expert team of paediatricians, including Dr. Rashmi Ranjan Das, Dr. Krishna M. Gulla, Dr. Ketan, and Dr. Ramakrishna, skillfully performed bronchoscopic interventions to extract the needle without encountering any complications.

“The patient, admitted for four days post-procedure, is now in stable condition and on the path to recovery. This innovative procedure, available at AIIMS Bhubaneswar and only a few centres across India, utilizes less invasive flexible bronchoscopy for the removal of sharp airway foreign bodies,” the media release said.