Foreign body embedded in toddler's lung (courtesy: Canadian Medical Association)
Posted on 12/20/2004 1:34:31 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Monday, December 20, 2004
By Joe Kovacs
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
At this time of year, many people enjoy the fresh pine scent emanating from Christmas trees decorating homes and offices.
Now doctors are discussing what may be the world's first incident of a child actually breathing part of a Christmas tree into his lung.
Foreign body embedded in toddler's lung (courtesy: Canadian Medical Association) |
"This is the first published case of a possible 'Christmas tree aspiration' of which we are aware," says Dr. Natalie Yanchar, a pediatric general surgeon at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Yanchar co-authored a report titled "Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree" in the Canadian Medical Association Journal with two of her colleagues, respirologist Dr. Paul Pianosi and pathologist Dr. Robert Fraser.
The case involves a toddler, age 2 1/2, who was puzzling physicians with ongoing pneumonia. He was referred to their department last season having "a history of recurrent right lower lobe pneumonia from the age of 10 months, beginning a few months after his first Christmas," according to the report.
"The boy was otherwise healthy, and his prenatal and neonatal histories were unremarkable. There was no history of choking episodes and no family history of respiratory illness. On examination, he was a healthy-looking child."
 Dr. Natalie Yanchar |
The doctors said when they listened to the boy breathe, "there were no crackles or wheezes audible over the lungs." But upon further investigation with a CT scan of the chest, they discovered a mysterious lump in the lower part of the boy's right lung.
After further tests, the child underwent surgery, and doctors found a "foreign body" looking conspicuously like a small sprig of an evergreen tree. It measured three centimeters long, and a half-centimeter around.
After surgery to remove the object, the boy was discharged from the hospital, and hasn't had any problems with pneumonia since.
"Foreign body aspiration needs to be considered in all cases of recurrent pneumonia in young children," the doctors write in their report.
"The holiday season is a time for children to explore and taste new things. ... We feel it merits consideration in the differential diagnosis of possible foreign body aspiration in a child shortly after the holiday season."
Friends don't let friends do conifir.
Friends don't let friends do conifer.
Bush's fault!
Dontcha love it when Bush is behind all these shennanigans.
Trust me, in Kanuckistan, some politico is writing a law right now to ban Christmas, trees, and everything else associated with Christmas. The Nanny State up north cannot be letting anyone decide their own destiny now, can they?
Another sad case of Tannenbaum Syndrome. O when will the horror end?
"Another sad case of Tannenbaum Syndrome. O when will the horror end?"
LOL Thanks for the morning laugh!
Nope, nope, nope, nope.
Ban NOSES. If people didn't have noses, then no trees could be so abused as to be sniffed up one.
:-)
The libs are going to use this to ban Christmas trees in public places, saying they are a danger to children.
poing
Warning labels on christmas trees next year
Forget the tree...I wanna know how many packs a day that kid was inhaling. black lungs...Yuk!
And what? The rest of the year their curiosity goes dormant and new tastes and new things hold no fascination for them?
What would we do without 'professionals'.
It's a good thing it wasn't one of those shiny aluminum Christmas trees like my parents had when I was a kid.
Another strange "Christmas Foreign Body" story: when I was a nurse in the hospital, we had a toddler admitted to remove a foreign body. He swallowed the loop at the top of a glass ornament, and it was stuck in his airway, with the hook end facing downward, and the flared end facing up. They had a very difficult time removing it with the endoscope, but eventually got it.
Great, now paint sniffing is out and Christmas tree "huffing" will be "in."
Apropos of the current thread, I still remember the "Grape Nuts" commercials that opened with Ewell Gibbons saying, "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible..."
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