Orogastric magnet removal of ingested disc batteries

Ingestion of disc batteries by infants and small children is an increasing problem. Batteries that remain in the stomach can corrode and damage mucosa and/or produce poisoning. Between 1989 and 1992, 37 children who had swallowed a total of 46 disc batteries presented to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, and were referred for battery removal by use of an orogastric magnet under fluoroscopy. Thirty-nine batteries were removed successfully (without anesthesia) from 32 children, using a magnet attached to an orogastric tube. In three cases the battery had passed into the small bowel. In one case, magnet extraction failed, but the two batteries the child had ingested subsequently passed into the small bowel. In two cases the patients refused to swallow the tube. In one of these cases the battery was removed successfully by the magnet, with the patient under general anesthesia; in the other it passed spontaneously into the small bowel. The authors conclude that orogastric magnet removal is a minimally invasive, well-tolerated method of removing ingested disc batteries.