[Extraction of foreign bodies with rigid oesophagoscopy: personal experience]

The Authors report their personal experience with regard to extraction of foreign bodies with a rigid oesophagoscope carried out in the last 16 years. All the patients studied live in Northern Italy, in Brianza Est, in area of about 100,000 inhabitants. One hundred and sixty-two cases were treated from 1977 to 1992. In order to better evaluate pathological evolution, we divided this period into two parts: 1977-1984 and 1985-1992. The data revealed are as follows: 1) Women always prevailed over men (73% in the first period and 67% in the second); 2) Foreign body extraction increased by 57% in the second period; 3) Patients most frequently treated were between the ages of sixty and eighty; 4) Foreign bodies most frequently extracted were bones (at all ages), coins (in the children) and large meat bolus (in older subjects). The Authors affirm that they were able to extract all foreign bodies employing the rigid oesophagoscope. Occasional difficulties which emerged during extraction were overcome successfully thanks to the vast experience of the medical staff. As a matter of fact, their experiences leads them to reject abandoning the rigid oesophagoscope for the flexible optical fibres also because even those ENT Departments with vast experience in the use of fibres are not always able to remove all kind of foreign bodies.