Doctors at Aster Hospital in Dubai's Mankhool area have removed a roughly 2cm milkfish bone that had been lodged in a patient's airway for nearly two months, a case specialists described as unusually prolonged. The patient, 60-year-old Indian expatriate Unnikrishnan Sivaraman, had been suffering from a persistent cough, chest congestion, breathing difficulties, nausea and bloodstained vomiting before the bone was located deep inside his right main bronchus.
Dr Jolsana Augustine, a specialist pulmonologist at the hospital, said such a long-standing foreign body is rare and can be hard to diagnose, warning that delayed treatment risks serious complications including infection or lasting lung damage.
A multidisciplinary team, including ear, nose and throat specialists and anaesthesia staff, performed a bronchoscopy to locate the bone, then carefully manoeuvred it from the lower bronchus into the upper airway before extracting it with specialised forceps. The procedure took between 30 and 40 minutes, and Sivaraman was discharged just three hours later in a stable condition.
The case has prompted renewed warnings from doctors in the UAE about the risks of eating fish with fine, sharp bones, such as milkfish, and the importance of seeking medical attention quickly if a cough or breathing problem develops after a meal rather than assuming it will pass on its own. Specialists say early imaging and bronchoscopy can prevent a small bone fragment from migrating deeper into the lungs, where it becomes far harder to remove and more likely to cause chronic inflammation or recurrent chest infections.