How Chinese doctor found a creative way to remove magnets from boy’s stomach
By using a more powerful magnet to remove two smaller ones doctors were able to avoid performing risky surgery on teenager
An innovative doctor in southwestern China used a strong magnet to remove two smaller ones from the stomach of a 13-year-old boy, 10 days after he swallowed them, according to local media reports.
The boy, only identified by his given name Qiangqiang, would have been at risk from severe internal bleeding if doctors had used standard surgical procedures to remove the magnets, which had already sunk into his stomach tissues and were causing ulcers.
So Hu Bing, director of the gastrointestinal endoscopy centre at West China Hospital in Chengdu decided to take a creative approach by using a much stronger magnet he ordered online for research a few days previously.
Hu and his team had tried to remove the button-sized magnets using an endoscopy, which is usually used to conduct internal examinations, but they found they were covered by tissues at the bottom of the boy’s stomach.
However. by attaching the powerful magnet to the endoscopy they were able to get round the problem.
Middle schooler Qiangqiang was playing with two magnets on October 28, when he accidentally swallowed both, Sichuan News reported on Wednesday.
His local hospital in Guizhou province suggested an open-chest surgery to take out the magnets, which had become stuck together, trapping part of this stomach tissue between them.
Qiangqiang’s parents thought that was too risky and sent their son to West China Hospital, a leading teaching hospital in the neighbouring province Sichuan.
Hu told the newspaper that without the magnets doctors would have had to dig a hole in the boy’s stomach.
“Even with open-chest surgery, it would be hard to find the magnets without tearing the tissue apart.”
