This nice woman with mild asthma lost a tooth crown and aspirated it as she was about to have lunch.
Check out the CxR. It was lodged at the first branching of the R bronchus intermedius with the smooth side (the shiny top of the crown) up towards us. Unfortunately I was using an optic (as opposed to digital, I know they are all "optic") scope and couldn't take a picture. I did snap a picture of the crown after removal with the basket on the side.
We did not have a bronch basket handy so an OR gallstone basket was just the perfect sixe.
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You gave it back to her, right?
GruntDoc
Yes, she is taking it back to her dentist.
how did u find this out? she had hemoptysis? or she was aware that she ¨swallowed¨ the crown?
She choked and could tell that she had aspirated it. She came in through the ER right after the episode.
After 7 years of working in the ER nothing surprises me. We just recently had a psych patient aspirate a star wars figure! the patient had Mounier Kuhn syndrome so the enlarged trachea made it possible. It was truly amazing! Hans Solo was in the right main stem bronchus!
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