• James R Bailey, Eric A Eisner, and Eric W Edmonds.
• Department of Orthopedics/Scoliosis/Sports Medicine, Rady Children's Hospital, 3030 Children's Way, Ste 410, San Diego, CA 92123, USA. EWEdmonds@rchsd.org.
• Patient Saf Surg. 2012 Jul 19; 6 (1): 16.

BackgroundThe ingestion of non-food items in children is a relatively common event, often unwitnessed, unknown, and unreported. For those children brought in for medical evaluation, less than 10% require intervention, and only 1% require surgery. This, however, is not the case for magnet ingestion. Magnets, in plurality, can become attracted to one another through intestinal walls, causing a variety of surgical emergencies.Case PresentationWe present a case of unwitnessed multiple magnet ingestion in a 5 year-old boy who presented to the emergency department with the atypical chief complaint of neck pain. The diagnostic work-up including a neck magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) potentially led to bowel perforations managed definitely by a subsequent exploratory laparotomy. The child had an uneventful postoperative recovery and was discharged to home upon surgical recovery.ConclusionsInstitutions should make all possible efforts to attempt to prevent such potential life-threatening circumstances. We propose a screening tool that can further enhance the care of children who cannot or do not report unwitnessed magnetic ingestion prior to MRI evaluation.

3 keywords...

hide…