Double Fogarty balloon catheter technique for difficult to retrieve esophageal foreign bodies

Foreign body ingestion is common, especially in the pediatric population. Plans for retrieval should be tailored to the specific esophageal foreign bodies.

We present a difficult to retrieve esophageal foreign body in a 3-year-old girl who ingested a 2 cm glass pebble. Intraoperatively, attempts using conventional optical forceps and retrieval baskets were unsuccessful due to the size and smooth texture of the object. A novel strategy using double Fogarty embolectomy balloon catheters for retrieval of blunt esophageal foreign bodies was devised and described.

The double fogarty retrieval technique described appeared to be safe and efficacious, allowing for extraction of large esophageal foreign bodies under direct visualization.