A case of stacked coin ingestion mistaken for button battery

Button battery ingestion requires emergency endoscopic removal since severe complications, such as esophageal perforation, can develop within 4 hours of the ingestion. Given that guardians do not witness the children’s foreign body ingestion 40% of the time, physicians can only guess what was swallo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Taehan Soa Ŭnggup Ŭhakhoe chi 2021-12, Vol.8 (2), p.116-119
Main Authors: Kim, Seong Rim, Park, Jun Sung, Oh, Seak Hee, Lee, Jeong-Yong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
child
esophagus
foreign bodies
numismatics
x-rays
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Button battery ingestion requires emergency endoscopic removal since severe complications, such as esophageal perforation, can develop within 4 hours of the ingestion. Given that guardians do not witness the children’s foreign body ingestion 40% of the time, physicians can only guess what was swallowed based on plain radiography. We report a case of a 45-month-old-boy who visited the emergency department after swallowing an unknown foreign body and whose radiographs showed “circle-within-a-circle appearance” on the anteroposterior view and “step-off appearance” on the lateral view, suggesting button battery ingestion. We conducted emergency endoscopic removal, and found stacked coins mimicking a button battery on the radiographs. The coins were pushed into the stomach and came out through defecation 3 weeks later without further complications. Distinguishing between stacked coins and a button battery through radiography may help avoid unnecessary emergency endoscopy.
ISSN:2383-4897
2508-5506
DOI:10.22470/pemj.2021.00283