Doctors have removed an 8in-long blood clot from a man’s lungs after discovering it had moulded itself into the shape of his airways.
The grotesque clot was removed from the lung of a 64-year old man after attaching itself to a breathing tube, the MailOnline reports.
The clot is not a part of his lung, which despite popular myth is almost impossible to cough up, but rather a vast blob of blood.
The man in question was admitted to hospital in critical condition after complaining of back pain, fever and a general feeling of illness.
Doctors at a London NHS hospital run by the Imperial College Healthcare trust quickly noticed he had ‘profoundly’ low blood pressure and took him into intensive care when it became apparent his lungs were failing.
It was there they discovered the enormous clot, after scans revealed the man had a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lungs) and a bronchoscopy revealed there was a ‘large pale blood clot’ stuck to the breathing tube they had inserted into the man’s lungs.
The build-up is known as a blood clot bronchial cast because it’s a clot that’s cast into the shape of the airway in which it builds up.
‘Despite multiple attempts, this could not be removed by suction,’ wrote Dr Charles Coughlan in a case report on the incident for BMJ Journals.
To remove the clot medics had to sedate and paralyse the patient, fishing it out by removing the breathing tube it had attached itself to.
It measured in at 7.8in (20cm) long in total, splitting off into five separate branches shaped just like the inside of a lung.
However, despite doctors claiming the man’s breathing improved ‘immediately’ following the removal of the enormous clot, he continued to remain terminally ill.
Further scans revealed the man was also suffering from bowel cancer, septic shock, MRSA, a bacterial infection and an infection in his heart tissue, and after doctors decided not to operate further on him, they switched off his life support after gaining permission from his family.
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