Military Hospital 175 (HCMC) recently informed: Recently, the hospital has continuously admitted 3 elderly patients for emergency treatment due to peritonitis (abdominal infection) and intestinal perforation due to taking pills with the blister pack intact.
Most recently, patient NVP (78 years old) was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit due to severe sepsis. The patient swallowed a blister pack of pills, causing abdominal infection due to multiple ileal perforations.
The patient was then operated on by doctors from the Abdominal Surgery Department to remove the foreign object, which was a pill still in its original packaging with sharp edges. The medical team removed the damaged intestine and cleaned the abdominal cavity.
After surgery, the patient responded well to treatment and was discharged from the hospital.
Image of a pill with a sharp edge piercing a patient's intestine. Photo: BVCC
According to Dr. Trinh Van Thao, Head of the Abdominal Surgery Department of Military Hospital 175, the three patients have in common that they are all old, have memory and vision loss, many underlying diseases, and must take many types of medication every day.
The patients' medicine ration is pre-cut and divided into meals. Some of the medicines are cut into individual tablets from the large blister pack but are still kept in the blister pack. This leads to patients accidentally taking the medicine without removing it from the blister pack.
As a result, the blister pack perforated the intestine, causing an abdominal infection during transportation and seriously threatening the patient's life. The doctor had to perform surgery to remove the blister pack.
The patient received timely surgery, removed the damaged intestine and cleaned the abdominal cavity. Photo: BVCC
Dr. Thao added that most patients accidentally took the medicine in the original blister pack without knowing it. Besides, many patients also realized that they had swallowed a foreign object but thought that the foreign object could come out and did not go to the hospital for early treatment.
Foreign bodies are medicines stored in blister packs that often have many sharp edges. Digestive juices cannot destroy them, so they will cause serious damage to the digestive tract at many places they pass through. More seriously, the damage can extend to a section of the intestine and must be removed.
Patients receive post-operative care at the Abdominal Surgery Department, Military Hospital 175. Photo: BVCC
Dr. Thao recommends that people and medical staff should follow the instructions for taking medication and should not divide the medication for those that need to be stored in blister packs. For the elderly and people with poor eyesight, when taking medication, they need to be supervised by relatives or medical staff.
The divided dose of the medicine should be opened in advance and stored for a short time in a zip bag or in a medicine storage box. In case of accidental swallowing of the blister pack, go immediately to a specialized medical facility for timely monitoring and treatment.
Swallowing an indigestible object, also known as swallowing a foreign body, is not an uncommon phenomenon, and 90% of foreign bodies can pass through the digestive tract safely. Only about 10% of foreign bodies cause digestive problems such as intestinal obstruction, intestinal perforation, inflammation, abscesses, etc. In particular, intestinal perforation due to a foreign body is the most serious complication and is often rare, accounting for 4-6% of the causes of intestinal perforation in general. It is often caused by long, sharp-edged foreign bodies such as fish bones, bamboo toothpicks, metal, tree seeds, blister packs, etc. and is more common in alcoholics, people who use removable dentures, people with poor eyesight, or children.
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