Esophago-pulmonary arterious fistula by ingestion of a foreign body: a case report

Abstract

This is a case report of a 92-year-old woman, suffering from dysphagia and retrosternal pain, caused by an oesophageal foreign body that was found during an endoscopic examination. Few days after unsuccessful attempts of removing the woman suddenly died. We present the anatomical and histopathological study of the anatomical part, preceded by Computed Tomography images acquisition. All data substantiate a fistula development between oesophagus and pulmonary artery caused by a foreign body (during the postmortem examination we found out it was a chicken bone). The presentation of this extraordinary event wants to point out that high definition radiodiagnostic techniques have key role as an essential preparatory aid to face peculiar problems of forensic pathology and can be extremely useful to lead a much more targeted macroscopic examination and histological verification.