Esophageal foreign body in children (button battery) – Case Report

Objective:

We evaluated a 16 months old male patient with a prolonged esophageal button battery condition regarding clinical features, therapeutic methods and prognosis.

Case Presentation:

A 16 months male patient was referred to the emergency room, with fever and poor feeding, for 4 days. After one day, in spite of medical treatment the child's condition was getting worse, presenting nausea and coughing after eating, therefore an AP chest X-ray revealed a round shaped opaque foreign body with double rim appearance. The patient was transferred immediately to the ENT department and emergently taken to surgery for rigid esophagoscopy with button battery removal. The esophageal mucosa presented many lesions and necrotic tissue, after foreign body removal.

Results:

After 7 days of parenteral and nasogastric feeding, flexible esophagoscopy revealed scar zone and fibrin tissue, with normal calibre of the esophagus and no signs of esophageal perforation or mucosal irregularities. For that reason, oral feeding was started with no complication. After one month, the patient presented for a checkup, with no history of dysphagia or any other symptoms.

Conclusions:

Button battery ingestion can result in severe complications, even death. It is important to obtain an immediate diagnosis by performing an anterior-posterior chest X-ray. A good collaboration between ENT surgeon, pediatrician, radiologist and anesthesiologist is necessary for solving these cases with no major complications.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)