Israeli woman has dental bridge removed from lung
A sixty-year-old Israeli woman was sent to hospital after an X-ray revealed that a piece of a metal dental bridge, which she had swallowed, was lodged in her lung. The woman had swallowed a piece of the bride as she was undergoing treatment to fit the appliance. The dentist carrying out the treatment assured her that it would emerge through her system naturally, without any problems.
However, the 5-centimetre long piece of metal had fallen into the lungs of the patient and has started to cause a bout of coughing and wheezing. When she went to the doctors to address the cough and mentioned that she has “swallowed” a piece of metal during dental procedure, although she had not previously made any connection between the incident and her cough. Her doctor sent her for an X-ray, which revealed the bridge to be in her lungs. Doctors at the Carmel Medical Centre said that the metal has already caused a cough and an infection, and that it had nearly forced a hole in her lung.
The bridge was removed via bronchoscope and an ultrasound scanner, and doctors said that, ‘The danger was huge…the bridge could have caused a great deal of damage. We removed it at the last minute before it did.’
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