부산대학교 도서관

Foreign body (FB) ingestion is a common medical emergency. It is much more rare in adults than in children and it occurs most often in predisposed people. We report the case of a 36-year old patient, treated in the psychiatry unit, admitted to the Emergency Department because of the ingestion of a 15 cm long iron wire which was spontaneously expelled through the abdominal wall at the level of the epigastrium. Clinical examination was normal with no peritoneal signs. (A) Abdominal CT scan (B) showed a linear foreign body expelled from the gastric antrum through a fistulous gastrocutaneous tract. The iron wire was removed under general anesthesia by gentle traction, extracting the tip remaining in the antrum leaving a gastrocutaneous fistula with no consequences. The postoperative course was uneventful. Foreign body ingestion is a frequent problem in current clinical practice. Nearly 80% of ingested foreign bodies spontaneously pass through the digestive tract, without any complication. 10-20% of these patients require endoscopic extraction and less than 1% a surgical intervention. Spontaneous expulsion through the abdominal wall is an exceptional event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]