Background Foreign body ingestion in children is a clinically important
reason for presentation to the emergency department. The individual outcome
ranges from benign spontaneous courses to severe complications. Fatal outcomes
occur rarely and complications are related to patient’s age as well as
type and location of the foreign body. The aim of our present study was to
evaluate the outcome of children and adolescents with foreign body ingestion
with a focus on complications, which mainly occurred after button battery
ingestion.
Methods We reviewed medical records of patients between 0 and 18 years of
age who had presented to the paediatric emergency department of our hospital
with suspected foreign body ingestion between January 2011 and March 2021 (123
months). Clinical, imaging, and endoscopic data as well as treatment modalities
were analysed.
Results In the ten10 year period under review, a total of 1,162 children
and adolescents (6 months – 18 years) presented to our emergency room
with suspected foreign body ingestion. Among those, 398 ingestions (34%)
could be verified radiologically and/or endoscopically, while in the
remaining 764 cases (66%) the suspicion could not be confirmed. The
majority of patients with verified ingestion (n=324; 81%)
presented with ingestion of a metallic foreign body. We observed 55 cases with
verified ingestion of a button battery. Five of these cases had severe
complications, with a near-fatal course in two patients who developed an
oesophageal-tracheal fistula.
Conclusion In contrast to all other ingestions of foreign bodies in
children, button battery ingestions lead to mucosal damage and severe
complications in a significant number of children.
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