Hours after a 33-year-old man swallowed a toothbrush accidentally, the doctors at the Government Medical College & Hospital (GMCH) at Aurangabad performed a laparotomy on him and removed the toothbrush from his abdominal cavity.
The doctors at the GMCH conducted an unusual surgery on Rajesh Jadhav, a labourer, who had been rushed to the hospital with acute pain in stomach on December 26.
Having learnt that he had swallowed a toothbrush, the doctors did a CT scan on Jadhav to determine the location of the brush in stomach.
“During the CT scan, we located the position of the toothbrush inside the stomach. Had the tooth brush remained there for some more time, it would have complicated matters and could have even proved fatal by way perforations in the stomach and intestine. Without losing time, we conducted a surgery on him to remove the toothbrush,” Dr. Junaid M. Shaikh said.
Dr Shaikh, who led the team that conducted the surgery, said: “We did a laparotomy on the patient’s abdominal cavity. The surgical procedure lasted for 90 minutes. At the end of it, we not only removed the toothbrush from the abdominal cavity but we also cleaned up the internal portions to prevent any possible infection in future”.
This was the second surgery of its kind conducted at GMCH during the last 15 years. Earlier, the doctors had performed a similar surgery when a patient had been rushed to the hospital after he had swallowed a steel spoon which was removed surgically.
Dean of GMCH Dr. Kannan Yelikar, Medical Superintendent Dr. Suresh Harbade and Head of General Surgery Dr. Sarojini Jadhav had formed a team headed by Dr. Shaikh to carry out the unusual operation.
The team that performed comprised Dr. Shaikh, Dr. Avinash Ghatge, Dr. Omar Khan, Dr. Sandeep Chavan, Dr. Sukanya Vinchurkar, Dr. Gaurav Bhavsar, Dr. Aniket Rakhude, Dr. Vishakha Walke and head nurse Santoshi Songatti. Though there have been instances when unsupervised infants or children have been rushed to this hospital after they swallowed coins, pins, beads, stones and small toys.
