Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Case report
Dentures discovered in larynx 8 days after general anaesthetic
  1. Harriet A Cunniffe
  1. East of England Deanery, UK
  1. Correspondence to Harriet A Cunniffe, harriet.cunniffe{at}gmail.com

Abstract

An active 72-year-old man presented to the accident and emergency department (A&E) with odynophagia, dysphagia and haemoptysis 6 days after a minor operation and was discharged after treatment for an aspiration pneumonia. He presented to A&E 2 days later with worsening symptoms and was found to have dentures lodged in his larynx which were then removed in theatre. For 6 weeks after removal, he had periodic episodes of frank haemoptysis requiring multiple blood transfusions and, after extensive investigation, was found to have an erosion into an arterial vessel on his right parapharyngeal wall, just posterior to the glossopharyngeal sulcus. This case raises questions about perioperative care in patients with dentures, diagnostic decision-making in the emergency care setting and postoperative care after delayed removal of foreign bodies from the upper aerodigestive tract.

  • anaesthesia
  • dentistry and oral medicine
  • ear, nose and throat/otolaryngology

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Contributors HAC planned, conducted and reported the work in this case report.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Patient consent for publication Obtained.