Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Pediatrics Volume 2010, Article ID 490691, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2010/490691 Research Article Foreign Bodies in the Oesophagus: The Experience of the Buenos Aires Paediatric ORL Clinic Alberto Chinski,1 Francesca Foltran,2 Dario Gregori,3 Simonetta Ballali,4 Desiderio Passali,5 and Luisa Bellussi5 1 Faculty of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, C1121ABG Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 Department of Surgery, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy 3 Labs of Epidemiological Methods and Biostatistics, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, University of Padova, Via Loredan 18, 35131 Padova, Italy 4 Faculty of Medicine, University of Padova, 35122 Padova, Italy 5 ENT Department, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Dario Gregori, dario.gregori@unipd.it Received 14 May 2010; Revised 6 July 2010; Accepted 21 August 2010 Academic Editor: Erle H. Austin Copyright © 2010 Alberto Chinski et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The ingestion of foreign bodies causing esophageal injuries is a common event, mostly in children’s population. The aim of the present paper is to present foreign body (FB) ingestion cases observed in a ﬁve-year period at the Children’s Hospital Gutierrez, Buenos Aires, Argentina and to compare the main ﬁndings with data coming from other well-known case series, already published in scientiﬁc literature. A prospective study on 320 of esophageal foreign body was carried out , with regard to age and sex distributions, type, dimensions and consistency, location, clinical presentation, removal and complications. In the majority of cases injuries happened while children were playing and in 85.3% adults were present. Children most frequently ingested coins (83.8% cases). Removal was performed in all cases under general anaesthesia, in 34 by esophageal forceps and in 286 cases by Magill hypopharyngeal forceps. Just one case showed complications, presenting esophageal perforation. The ﬁnal results of this study show that injuries usually happen under adults’ supervision and highlight that FBs involved in the incident belong to classes of objects not conceived for children’s use and not suitable for their age. Therefore, educational strategies regarding safe behaviours have a key role in FB injuries prevention. 1. Introduction Foreign body (FB) ingestion is a frequent occurrence in children, especially in their ﬁrst six years of life [1, 2], with a peak in children older than 3 years [3, 4]. Var- ious reasons for this event can be pointed out, stress- ing that all the characteristics such as sex, age, socioe- conomic level and parents’ inﬂuence are closely interre- lated [5]. The most common aspects presented in lit- erature as leading factors to those injuries include chil- dren’s behaviour, anatomical characteristics, and physiolog- ical features such as immature swallowing coordination, development of chewing capacity, and higher respiratory rates [6]. Details of FB characteristics and the dynamics of the traumatic events involved in FB inhalation are therefore important to understand the pathogenic path- way. The aim of the present paper is to present esophageal foreign bodies cases observed at the Children’s Hospital Gutierrez in Buenos Aires in a period of ﬁve years and to compare these ﬁndings with data coming from representative case series already published in international literature and coming from other continents. 2. Methods 2.1. Data Collection. Data regarding children (0–14 years) presenting FB in the esophagus have been prospectively