The danger was big, the doctors came up with an idea
According to the doctors, when the patient came to the emergency, his condition was bad. Professor Anil Arora, Head of Gastroenterology at Sir Gangaram Hospital, said, “Forcibly removing the esophagus would have injured it… then complications like bleeding, infection and sepsis would have arisen… surgery would have to be done in an emergency.” Dr Srihari Anikhindi, consultant gastroenterologist and therapeutic endoscopist, said that ‘direct removal (of the tablet) from the esophagus was dangerous as there was no room for any endoscopic manoeuvre. We gently pushed the tablet along the foil towards the stomach. This gave us the space to use maneuvering special accessories. Once the tablet reached inside the stomach, the doctors punctured it with the help of a special needle and then injected saline under pressure. This caused the tablet to dissolve and come out of the foil.
Since the foil was now empty, the doctors folded it so that it became smaller and the dangerous edge folded. Dr Anikhindi said that the aluminum foil was removed from the mouth through the endoscopic mucosal resection cap – a special accessory attached to the endoscope.
Professor Arora told our colleague Times of India that this is the second such case. On both the occasions the patient was relieved by this approach. He said that such cases have not been reported in the medical literature. In the absence of a standard approach, doctors have to innovate.