The doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital performed a surgery and removed 39 coins and 37 magnets from a man’s intestine. The patient is a 26-year-old, schizophrenia patient, who reportedly swallowed the coins and magnets under the presumption that zinc helps in body-building.
According to the doctors the patient, a resident of Delhi, was discharged from the hospital two days ago after a week of post-surgery, and now he is doing well. The patient visited the emergency ward of Sir Ganga Ram with complaints of repeated vomiting and abdominal pain for more than 20 days and the patient was also unable to eat anything. His relatives told the doctors that the patient consumed coins and magnets over the past 20-22 days and showed an X-ray of his abdomen, which revealed radio-opaque shadows with the shape of coins and magnets. Later the patient underwent a CT scan of the abdomen, that showed a huge load of coins and magnets, causing intestinal blockage.
Dr. Tarun Mittal, senior consultant of laparoscopic, laser, and general surgery said that the patient was immediately prepared for surgery. During the surgery, it was found the magnets and coins were present in the small intestine in two different loops and the magnetic effect stretched the two loops together and corroded it, the intestines were opened and the coins and magnets were taken out. Both the loops were rejoined by different anastomoses. He also said that when they inspected the stomach, they found huge loads of coins and magnets. Then the stomach was opened and all the coins were extracted. They took an operative X-ray which showed that all foreign bodies had been removed.
Dr. Mittal said that the surgery lasted for two hours. They removed 39 coins of Rs. 1, 2, and 5 denominations and 37 magnets of different shapes, which are heart, sphere, star, bullet, and triangle. When they asked the patient why he had consumed it, the patient said that he thought zinc, which is present in coins, helps in building the body and he swallowed the magnets so that the coins would remain in the intestine to promote more absorption of zinc.
Dr. Mittal said that ingestion of foreign bodies can be life-threatening and should not be done.
The surgery was performed by a team of doctors, including Dr, Mittal, Dr. Ashish Dey Dr. Anmol Ahuja, Dr. Vikram Singh, Dr. Tanushree, and Dr. Karthik.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/Lavanya Beeraboina/MSM)
