Other ConditionsMagnet foreign body ingestion: rare occurrence but big consequences☆
Section snippets
Study design
Following approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Children's Mercy Hospital (IRB#16070546) and Texas Children's Hospital (IRB#H39198), medical records of all children less than 18-years-old with magnet ingestions were retrospectively reviewed from January 2011 to June 2016. Patients were identified based on International Classification of Disease Ninth Revision (ICD-9) diagnosis coding. Patients diagnosed with foreign body ingestion, which included mouth, esophagus and stomach
Patient characteristics
A total of 89 patients were found to have ingested a magnet (Hospital 1 = 50 and Hospital 2 = 39) (Table 1). The median age was 7.9 (4.0–12.0) years, and there were 56% (n = 50) males. Sixty-seven percent (n = 60) of patients ingested multiple magnets and or a magnet and a second metallic foreign body. The most common location identified on imaging was small intestine and/or colon (45%) followed by the stomach (42%). Only 39% were symptomatic and the most common symptom was abdominal pain.
Clinical management
Plain
Discussion
Magnet ingestion may not be the most common foreign body ingested but they require special attention and prompt management. Recently, reports of magnet ingestion complications including death have forced toy companies to recall certain magnetic toys [15], [16]. This prompted the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to release a warning regarding high-powered magnets and proposed new federal standards [17], [18]. However, the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology,
Conclusions
Magnets have a high risk of requiring intervention for removal, especially when multiple magnets or a magnet and a second metallic foreign body are ingested together. Given the management variability and lack of standardization, we developed an algorithm for management of magnet ingestions. Future prospective studies evaluating this algorithm are needed.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank Ashley Sherman, MA for her work with analyzing the results.
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All authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose regarding this study.