10 June, 2015

A fish bone stuck in a man’s lung for 7 years removed successfully

A 37-year-old Keralite could finally breathe easy after a fish bone stuck in his lungs was removed after seven years. Arun Nair, head of interventional pulmonary department at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre here, said the patient, who is with the Oman military Service has been under routine medical attention since 2009.

According to the man’s medical records, he had been suffering from recurrent pneumonia since then. But he could finally breathe freely on Saturday when the fish bone was removed. Nair told IANS that the patient underwent a successful rigid bronchoscopy procedure and a fish bone measuring 1.5 cm x 1.4 cm tucked away in the lower lobe of the right lung was removed successfully and the pus formed around it drained out.

‘It was life threatening. There was pus formation behind the foreign body… The lung behind it had become necrotic,’ said Nair. The doctor said the fish bone was never detected by doctors during earlier hospitalisations in Oman as CT scans did not pick it up. Normally such foreign bodies get stuck in the lungs of children, but it is rare for such a thing to happen with adults.

When there is a foreign body in the lung, the lung gets destroyed. It is unusual to have a foreign body remained undetected for seven years. ‘Removing it after such a long time was challenging as there was excessive tissue growth around the foreign body. The patient will be discharged soon,’ added Nair.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

10.06.2015

Glaucoma now curable with an injection!

Glaucoma, an eye disease that damages the optic nerve and can result in vision loss and blindness, can now be treated with a simple injection, eye surgeons have said. In glaucoma, eye pressure plays a role in damaging the optic nerve.

A new technology developed by a US-based company relieves the pressure in the eye with a minimally invasive method, thus doing away with the need for scalpels and stitches, the experts noted. It involves using a hypodermic needle to inject a tiny pliable drainage tube into the eye, allowing excess fluid to flow out, the Daily Mail reported.

The Xen Gel Stent developed by California-based AqueSys Inc is six mm long and about the width of a human hair. It is injected through a small self-sealing corneal incision using a simple, preloaded injector. It was ‘quicker and safer’ than current methods, Vik Sharma, a consultant eye surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in London, was quoted as saying. But the XEN Gel Stent is an investigational device, which means it has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yet.

The current approach in the management of patients with glaucoma begins with medications followed by laser surgery, or trabeculectomy, a treatment that frequently involves installing a small rigid tube in the eye to drain it. This is attached to a metal plate embedded below the eye, which helps draw the fluid away. The eye must be cut to insert these relatively bulky items, and stitched up again, which leads to a high complication rate. By comparison, the Xen Gel Stent is delivered directly via a hypodermic needle into the eye which has potential to lower complications rate compared to traditional methods.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

10.06.2015

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present

 Jim Rohn