Luu Ha L, 2, from Yen Dung of Bac Giang province, was brought to Bac Giang Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital on July 20 with bleeding from her right ear.

L’s mother said the girl felt pain in the ear two days before. She shone the torch into the ear and saw yellow fluid, so she used a cotton swab to clean the fluid. But on July 20, the state of the girl became worse. She was crying and complaining about the pain. When the mother checked the girl’s ear, she saw blood flowing from inside, and then hurrued to get her to hospital.

The doctors conducted an endoscopy and discovered there were many fly larvae (maggots) in the right ear of the child.

“About 20 maggots built a long-term nest in the baby's ear. We conducted an operation to remove all the larvae and carcasses of flies, and cleaned the ears as well,” said Tran Minh Tan, the physician who treated the girl.

As Tan found that the child’s ear canal and eardrum were congested and exuded with fluid, he decided that the child needed to be hospitalized for further treatment.

After four days of treatment, the condition of the child improved. Endoscopy showed that the ear canal was cleaned and the tympanic membrane was stable. The child has been discharged from the hospital.

"Fortunately, the child's hearing was not affected," said Tan.

The doctors at the hospital have many times received patients with foreign objects in ears or noses. The most common are beans, peas, small beads of toys, cotton balls, chalk, erasers, button batteries, and insects such as ants and mosquitoes.

In most cases, the foreign objects have been there for many days in ears, caused local inflammation, even destruction of the mucosa or perforation of the nasal septum or the eardrum.

“However, this was the first time we received a patient with insects living in ears and with such a high number of larvae,” Tuan said, adding that if the patient had arrived later, she might have suffered from perforation of the eardrum.

Doctors recommend that parents be extremely careful when taking care of young children. If children are fussy, have strange fluids such as blood or pus coming out of the ear, parents need to take their children to hospital for timely examination and treatment.

Parents are advised not to try to remove foreign bodies from ears, noses and throats at home, because this may make the foreign objects go deeper, thus causing more serious injury. 

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