Disk battery aspiration in a young child: a scarcely reported phenomenon

Disk (or button) battery ingestion is not uncommon, with an estimated US incidence of 2 to 8 per million annually.(1) Reported serious adverse sequelae include esophageal stenosis, tracheoesophageal fistula, vocal cord paralysis, massive bleeding, and death.(1,2) There are, however, surprisingly few reports of aspirated batteries in the searchable literature; we found only 2. We present the diagnostic workup and treatment of a previously healthy 4-year-old boy with an aspirated disk battery in the bronchus.