Ingestion of magnets: innocent in solitude, harmful in groups
Section snippets
Case report
A 9-year-old girl presented with chief complaint of consistent abdominal pain with crampy episodes for 1 day. She had been repeatedly vomiting over 2 days and stated her last bowel movement 2 days ago. On admission, the girl appeared in relative good condition, her abdomen was slightly distended, and in the middle-right side, a mass was palpable, associated with localized guarding, rebound tenderness, and positive Rovsing sign; bowel sounds were slightly increased. Laboratory studies showed
Discussion
Foreign body ingestion is a commonly encountered problem in pediatrics, and in 80% to 90% of cases, the foreign body passes the intestinal tract spontaneously once the ingested object has entered the small intestine [2]. Ingestion of magnets and its consequences have scarcely been discussed in the literature. Those magnets described in our case report were small enough to pass the intestinal tract after ingestion. Yet, because numerous magnets had been ingested, with a slight time interval in
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Cited by (53)
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2020, Pediatrics and NeonatologyCitation Excerpt :Nonetheless, multiple gastric erosions were found in two of our cases within 8 h of magnet ingestion. This indicates that, unlike cases in which foreign bodies reach the small intestine without causing injury,14,15 further damage may occur when the magnets reach the distal bowel. Therefore, it is prudent to remove the magnets, particularly if they are endoscopically accessible.7
Multiple magnet ingestion: Ring-like configuration with multiple intestinal fistulae
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2020, Pediatric Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease, Sixth EditionMultiple magnet ingestion causing instestinal obstruction and entero-enteric fistula: Which imaging modality besides radiographs? A case report
2018, Annals of Medicine and SurgeryCitation Excerpt :When two or more magnets have been ingested, prompt evaluation, imaging, and consultation with gastroenterologists or surgeons are warranted. Most of the magnets are visible radiographically since these objects are radio-opaque as published in previous reports in the literature [10,14,15,18,19]. Stacked magnets can simulate a single magnet on plain radiography.