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Safety-pin ingestion in children: a cultural fact
Feryal Gün1, Tansu Salman, Latif Abbasoglu
1gunferyal@yahoo.com
Insights
Safety pin ingestion in children is common. Most pins pass naturally or are removed endoscopically, with surgery rarely needed for pediatric safety pin foreign-body removal.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Gastroenterology
- Foreign Body Ingestion Management
- Surgical Pediatrics
Background:
- Pediatric foreign-body (FB) ingestion, particularly sharp objects like safety pins (SP), presents a frequent clinical challenge.
- Safety pins are sometimes used in infants for attaching beads, believed to ward off the evil eye, leading to ingestion risks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the management strategies for safety pin ingestion in pediatric patients.
- To analyze the outcomes and interventions required for children ingesting safety pins.
Main Methods:
- A retrospective review of 49 pediatric cases of witnessed safety pin ingestion over a 16-year period.
- Analysis of safety pin location (esophagus, stomach, duodenum, intestine), method of removal (spontaneous, endoscopic, surgical), and patient outcomes.
Main Results:
- Safety pins most commonly lodged in the esophagus and stomach (37% each).
- 41% of children passed safety pins spontaneously, 28.5% required endoscopic removal, and 30.5% underwent surgery.
- All patients experienced uneventful outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Esophageal safety pins necessitate endoscopic intervention.
- Safety pins in the stomach can be managed with observation, with surgery considered for fixed positions exceeding three days.
Abstract:
Pediatric foreign-body (FB) ingestion is a common problem. Many of these FBs are sharp objects such as needles, toothpicks and safety pins (SP). This report reviews the management of SP ingestion in children. During a 16-year period, we recorded 49 pediatric cases of witnessed SP ingestion. In all children, SPs were used to attach the blue beads to the child's suits with the belief of averting the evil eye. The mean age was 8 months ranging from 4 months to 2 years, and 30 patients were males and 19 were females. SPs were most commonly sited in esophagus (37%) and stomach (37%). In the remainder, the SPs have already reached the duodenum and intestine. In this series, 20 (41%) children passed SPs spontaneously, 14 (28.5%) required endoscopic removal and 15 (30.5%) underwent surgery. The outcome of all patients was uneventful. All of the esophageal SPs require endoscopic intervention, however, after passing into stomach the patients can be observed with keeping the surgical intervention in mind if the SP displays a fixed position for more than three days.