On November 8, 2019, Zhu Benbiao, a 75-year-old man in China, nearly choked to death after accidentally swallowing his dentures while eating. His family rushed Benbiao to the hospital after noticing he had trouble breathing. According to news reports, the false teeth were stuck in his throat for eight hours before being removed during a lengthy emergency surgery.
An endoscope revealed that the false teeth were jammed sideways near his trachea and esophagus. If the doctors hadn’t acted quickly, the man could have died of asphyxiation.
Unfortunately, this is not the first case of dentures getting stuck in a person’s throat.
In August, an ear, nose, and throat specialist in the U.K. wrote about a 72-year-old man whose removable denture was jammed in his throat during a surgery to remove a benign lump from his abdomen.
It took eight days before the doctors realized that the false teeth were in the patient’s throat. Doctors discovered the teeth on an x-ay after the man returned to the hospital, complaining of pain, bleeding, and trouble swallowing.
These cases indicate why a patient in the U.S. can’t have any removable dentures or even temporarily cemented crowns before undergoing general anesthesia. Intubation can push any loose objects down the throat.
Thank for to Dr. Bicuspid.com