Doctors at Kolkata Medical College and Hospital removed a magnet lodged in the right lung of a six-year-old boy using a specially designed device made at a local workshop, after repeated attempts with conventional forceps failed.
The child, identified as Arafat Ali from Baduria in North 24 Parganas, was brought to the hospital by his mother on Tuesday with persistent coughing and breathing difficulties. A CT scan and an X-ray showed that a small, amulet-shaped magnet had travelled through his airway and become lodged in the right bronchus, creating a serious risk to his breathing.
The child was admitted to the ENT department and stabilised before doctors attempted to retrieve the object through bronchoscopy on Wednesday. Associate Professor Dr Diptanshu Mukhopadhyay made four attempts to remove the magnet with forceps, but the object repeatedly slipped away. ENT department head Prof Soumendranath Bandyopadhyay then took over the procedure, but the team was still unable to secure a firm grip.
“We could not get a proper grip on the magnet with the forceps. Every time we tried to pull it up towards the vocal cords, it slipped away,” Mukhopadhyay said, according to the report.
Doctors performed a tracheostomy to maintain the boy’s breathing and also tried to remove the magnet through the alternative airway created during the procedure. Those attempts were unsuccessful. The team then explored thoracotomy, a procedure that involves opening the chest, and contacted SSKM Hospital for assistance. However, a paediatric intensive care unit bed could not be arranged there by Thursday morning.
The medical team subsequently considered using another magnet to attract the lodged object. Mukhopadhyay visited a lathe workshop in Maniktala, central Kolkata, on Thursday morning and showed worker Prabhakar Karar the boy’s X-ray images. Karar, who lives in Shyampur in Howrah, assessed that the lodged object was relatively weak, similar to magnets commonly used in toys, and offered to make a stronger magnet in a shape that could be attached to surgical forceps.
“I was asked to make a powerful magnet of a particular size that could be attached to the forceps and taken close to the lodged object. I made it according to the doctor’s specifications. I feel happy that something I made helped save a child’s life,” Karar said.
The custom-made magnet was taken to the hospital later on Thursday. A six-member team led by Bandyopadhyay conducted another procedure, with anaesthetists Debashis Ghosh and Atreyee Ghosh, and doctors Mukhopadhyay, Shubhrajeet Naskar and Udita Soren participating.
The magnet attracted the foreign object, which had remained lodged in the boy’s lung for three days. Doctors used the tracheostomy opening to retrieve it while taking care that it did not slip further into the respiratory tract. Following the procedure, normal airflow was restored to both lungs and the child was shifted to the intensive care unit for further treatment.
“It feels like we have won a battle. Air is now flowing through both his lungs, and he is recovering in the ICU,” Mukhopadhyay said.
