The Central Endocrine Hospital has just received, examined and treated patient Bui Van (name has been changed), 53 years old, residing in Tien Xuan commune, Thach That district, Hanoi, admitted to the hospital with signs of hoarseness and difficulty in speaking. neck.
The leech was successfully removed by doctors. Photo: BVCC
One month earlier, the patient cut his hand while catching a rat trap. He chewed a handful of grass to cover the cut. When he got home, the patient felt a lump in his throat, a sore throat, a feeling of an animal in his throat, looked in the mirror and saw a part of a brown-black object moving, accompanied by occasional hoarseness and sometimes loss of voice. The patient also reported no difficulty breathing, no fever, no nausea, and sometimes coughed up a little blood mixed with saliva.
MSc. Ha Manh Hung – Deputy Head of the Department of Otolaryngology – Maxillofacial – Eyes (Central Endocrine Hospital) said: “This is a rare case of living foreign bodies in the airway. After performing ear endoscopy nasopharynx detected a “living foreign body” in the larynx. When using light to examine, the foreign body was firmly attached below the glottis near the trachea. Consult with the Department of Anesthesia and Resuscitation, if anesthesia is to be performed. If a living foreign object comes out, it will make the patient struggle to breathe, make it difficult to remove the foreign object, and even have the possibility of the foreign object burrowing deep inside, so we decided to anesthetize the patient. “.
Doctors successfully removed the “living foreign object”. The foreign object after being removed was a living stream leech about 6cm in size. Currently, the patient is awake, healthy, living normally and discharged from the hospital to his family.
Doctors say that patients with parasitic leeches often live in mountainous or rural areas or use water in streams and ditches. When leeches first enter the body through water into the nose and throat, they are usually very small in size, but after entering the body for a short time, they will suck blood and grow very quickly. Doctors recommend that people not use them. Use unsafe water sources, leaves, and wild vegetables in streams and ditches for drinking and daily activities, and prevent living foreign objects from entering the body. When there are any unusual health symptoms, people need to see a medical facility early to get a correct diagnosis, avoiding the risk of foreign parasitic objects in the body affecting their health.