Abnormal foreign body in the esophagus: a rare presentation

Foreign body ingestion and impaction in the esophagus can happen at any age, although occurring more frequent in children (<10 years) and adults (>50 years). This problem can happen in both sexes with equal frequency. The risk factors in favor of the esophagus foreign body impaction include impaired vision, poor dentations, psychotic patients, body packers, prisoners, and patients with previous esophageal abrasion. The aim of this article is to study the etiology, clinical presentation, surgical treatment, and complications of foreign body ingestion at the same time as presenting a rare remarkable case.     

Denture plate foreign body of esophagus

Background  Impacted esophageal foreign bodies are encountered occasionally. It still remains the challenging task for endoscopiest to remove them and surgery may be the only final remedy. Methods  This report consists of five consecutive cases from January 2004 to December 2007, where denture plate foreign bodies were found impacted in cervico-thoracic junction of esophagus. Endoscopic attempts did not help them and all the patients needed cervical oesophagotomy. Two patients were males and three females with age ranged from sixty to eighty five years. The duration of ingestion was two to seven days with mean of 4.8±1.92 days. Result  Denture plates were removed successfully in all the cases without any early or late complication over the period of 2.163±1.212 years of follow up. Mortality and morbidity was 0%. Conclusion  Open surgical removal of impacted esophageal foreign body is still the gold standard in spite of advancement in endoscopic techniques.     

Unusual foreign body in the esophagus: a challenge for the anesthesiologist

A foreign body in the esophagus is usually removed by endoscopy. An elder man entered the emergency room dyspneic and dysphagic. A chest X-ray showed that he had a table fork stuck in the upper esophagus. An endoscopist tried to remove it without success. After bilateral block of the superior laryngeal nerve, transtracheal injection, topical anesthesia of the mouth, and sedation, an awake laryngoscopy was carried out. Pushing the laryngoscope into the opening of the esophagus the fork was seen and extracted by the anesthesiologist. This case focuses on the role of the anesthesiologist in the removal of esophageal foreign bodies.     

An unusual foreign body in the esophagus: report of a case

Foreign body ingestion occurs commonly in children and in specific high-risk groups of adults. Foreign bodies in the gastrointestinal tract can result in serious complications depending on the size and shape of the ingested object. This report presents a patient with an unusual foreign body in the esophagus. Received: November 20, 2000 / Accepted: November 20, 2001     

Tension pneumothorax during removal of a foreign body from the esophagus

Extracting foreign bodies from the esophagus is a common procedure in emergency rooms. We report the case of an 82-year-old man who came to the emergency room after swallowing a clam shell. After three successive examinations by fiberoptic endoscopy, the last of which was performed with general anesthesia, the patient suffered pneumomediastinum and pneumothorax first on the right side and then, within a few hours, on the left. After extraction of the foreign body, bilateral pleural drainage and emergency repair of esophageal perforation were required. Episodes of pneumothorax have been described after endoscopic procedures on the digestive tract such as esophagoscopy. The cause of esophageal perforation described may be iatrogenic, produced during esophageal manipulations or it may be caused by the foreign body itself, by an awake patient's performance of Valsalva maneuvers during esophagoscopy, or the entrance of air in the pleural cavity through esophageal perforation; any of these would explain the presentation of pneumothorax in this case. In the presence of sudden cardiorespiratory deterioration in a patient undergoing an endoscopic procedure, a diagnosis of tension pneumothorax must be considered.     

Hepatic foreign body - a sewing needle - in a child

We report a case of a 1-year-old boy with a needle-like foreign body embedded in the liver. The foreign body was incidentally found in the right hypochondrium on routine chest X-ray during a periodic medical examination. He was asymptomatic and there was neither a history of swallowing a needle nor a puncture wound on his body. The results of blood tests and physical examination were entirely within normal limits. Computed tomography scan showed that the needle was completely buried in the liver. At laparotomy, some fibrous tissue and a scar were recognized between the surface of the left lobe of the liver and the parietal peritoneum of the upper abdominal wall. The end of the sewing needle was manually squeezed out and extracted from the liver. From this operative finding, it was assumed that the needle had penetrated the liver through his skin. His postoperative course was uneventful and he was discharged on postoperative day 8.