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Updated: Jan 5, 2026

Handheld Metal Detector Screening for Metallic Foreign Body Ingestion in Children
Published on: September 11, 2018
[Cases of migration of swallowed foreign bodies from the gastrointestinal tract]
Ákos Balázs1, Tamás Vass1, Dávid Tárnoki2
1I. Sebészeti Klinika, Semmelweis Egyetem, Általános Orvostudományi Kar Budapest, Üllői út 78., 1082.
Abstract:
Migration of swallowed foreign bodies from the gastrointestinal tract is a rare phenomenon compared with the total number of ingestions. In the reported two cases, the serious septic condition indicated urgent surgical intervention. We found a piece of wire swallowed a few months earlier in the right lobe of the liver and the retroperitoneum in case one, and a piece of wire in the pericardium, which migrated from the stomach through the left lobe of the liver, in case two. Abscesses and phlegmonae were found in the retroperitoneum and then in the femoral region requiring a reoperation in case one, and in the liver and pericardium in case two. After the evacuation of abscesses, both patients made full recovery. Diagnostic difficulties and therapeutic challenges served the reasons to present these cases. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(42): 1677-1681.
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