Foreign body in the upper airway and oesophagus: a seven years study from Iran.

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of foreign body, its location and clinical symptoms in patients with symptoms or positive history of foreign body swallowing and to assess the role of endoscopy in the management of foreign body removal. METHODS All patients referred to the Ear, Nose, Throat emergency ward of a general hospital in Kerman-Iran with a positive history of swallowing foreign body and presence of clinical symptoms and/or a suspicious radiological findings in favour of esophages foreign body in the period between April, 2001 and September, 2008 were evaluated. Patients undergoing esophagoscopy were 160. Data was analyzed by t test and spearman correlation coefficient. RESULTS Among 160 participants in this study, 82 (51.3%) were male .The patients' mean age was 36 +/- 21.7 years. Among all the participating patients, 39 (24.4%) were below 18 years age. There was no history of foreign body being swallowed in 37 cases. A total number of 123 cases had foreign bodies, the most commonly found foreign body was bone which was found in 46 patients (37.4%). While, the most common object swallowed in children was coin. Symptoms in all age groups was pain and audinophagia and second was dysphagia. Most of foreign bodies were stuck in the pharynx (50.6%) and the commonest place was 5cm below the cricopharyngeals junction (33%). There was no significant difference in the location of foreign bodies in males and females. The period between swallowing foreign body and referring to the hospital was less than a day in 115 cases (72%). There was no significant difference between the time taken to refer to the hospital and patients' sex, location and type of foreign body (P>0.05). The mentioned gap increased with age r = 0.21 p = 0.007. CONCLUSION The most common foreign body found in adults was bone and in children it was a coin. The most frequent site where the foreign body was lodged was 5cm below the cricopharyngcal junction.