A Case of Bronchial T-tube Foreign Body

Airway foreign bodies may cause recurrent pneumonia and atelectasis, which could be fatal; therefore, early diagnosis and removal are important. We report the case of a 76-year-old man who underwent total laryngectomy for laryngeal cancer (cT3N0M0) who presented with a foreign body (T-tube) lodged in his airway. Postoperatively, the permanent tracheostomy was observed to be stenotic, and we inserted a T-tube to maintain patency of the tracheostomy. We observed a gradual increase in sputum accumulation, necessitating frequent suctioning. Follow-up computed tomography performed a few weeks later for comorbid interstitial pneumonia revealed a foreign body in the left main bronchus. We performed bronchoscopy for removal of the bronchial foreign body, which proved to be the T-tube.