The patient is R.C. K. (13 years old, residing in Chu Pah commune, Gia Lai province). At the end of April, she was transferred to Ho Chi Minh City in critical condition with symptoms of respiratory failure, shock, acute heart failure and pericarditis.
BSCK2 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong - Deputy Head of Cardiology Department, Children's Hospital 2 - said that immediately upon admission, the patient was placed in an endotracheal tube with a ventilator, used vasopressors and combined with many antibiotics to control severe infection.
Due to severe heart compression, doctors indicated emergency surgery to relieve heart pressure. During the surgery, the team recorded pus and inflammatory pseudomembrane covering almost the entire heart and major blood vessels such as the upper and lower aortic veins.
Surprisingly, doctors discovered a intact bamboo toothpick piercing the back of the right ventricle of the heart. This was identified as the cause of the pathway for bacteria to enter, leading to inflammation and pericardial pus.
After removing the foreign object from the patient's body, the team proceeded to clean the pus nest and continued treatment with high-dose antibiotics to control infection.
According to BSCK2 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, it is likely that the patient accidentally swallowed a bamboo toothpick from before. The foreign object then moved through the digestive tract and somehow penetrated the right ventricle of the heart. However, neither the patient nor the family knew when they swallowed the foreign object.
Currently, the patient's health has passed the dangerous stage and is being closely monitored at the hospital. However, in the long term, children are still at risk of chronic cardiovascular complications such as constrictive pericarditis, so they need to be re-examined periodically for monitoring and timely treatment.
