5175 Review Article on Interventional Pulmonology in the Intensive Care Unit Foreign body aspiration Divyansh Bajaj1, Ashutosh Sachdeva2, Desh Deepak3 1Department of Medicine, Quinnipiac University Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Bridgeport, CT, USA; 2Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 3Department of Respiratory Medicine, Dr. RML Hospital & Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India Contributions: (I) Conception and design: D Bajaj, D Deepak; (II) Administrative support: A Sachdeva; (III) Provision of study materials or patients: D Deepak, A Sachdeva; (IV) Collection and assembly of data: None; (V) Data analysis and interpretation: None; (VI) Manuscript writing: All authors; (VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors. Correspondence to: Desh Deepak, MBBS, MD. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Dr. RML Hospital & Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110001, India. Email:
[email protected]. Abstract: The clinical manifestations of foreign body (FB) aspiration can range from an asymptomatic presentation to a life-threatening emergency. Patients may present with acute onset cough, chest pain, breathlessness or sub-acutely with unexplained hemoptysis, non-resolving pneumonia and at times, as an incidental finding on imaging. Patients with iatrogenic FB such as an aspirated broken tooth during difficult intubation or a broken instrument are more common scenarios in the intensive care unit (ICU). Patients with post-obstructive pneumonia with or without sepsis, or variable degree of hemoptysis often require ICU level of care and bronchoscopic interventions. Rigid bronchoscopy has traditionally been the modality of choice; however, with the innovation in instrumentation and wider availability of flexible bronchoscopes, most of the FB removal is now successfully performed using flexible bronchoscopy.