Clin Exp Emerg Med.  2021 Mar;8(1):30-36. 10.15441/ceem.20.070.

Factors affecting successful esophageal foreign body removal using a Foley catheter in pediatric patients

• Lim D
• Kim JK
• Kim YJ
• Cho YJ
• Cho JW
• Park J
• Choe JY
• Choe BH

• KMID: 2514379
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.15441/ceem.20.070

Abstract

Objective
This study aimed to determine the factors that affect successful esophageal foreign body (FB) removal using a Foley catheter and to identify methods to increase the success rate.
Methods
In this retrospective, cross-sectional study, we included pediatric patients who presented with esophageal FB impaction that was removed using a Foley catheter in the emergency departments of tertiary care and academic hospitals. We analyzed the effect of the patients’ age, sex, and symptoms; FB type, size, and location; Foley catheter size; complications during FB removal; duration between FB ingestion and removal; operator’s years of training; sedation; success rate of FB removal; endoscopy; and patient’s posture during FB removal on the success of Foley catheter-based FB removal.
Results
Of the 43 patients we enrolled, Foley catheter-based FB removal was successful in 81.4% (35/43) but failed in 18.6% (8/43) of patients; no FB-removal-related complications were reported. There was no significant association between the success rate of Foley catheter-based FB removal and any study variable. A higher number of years in training tended to increase the success rate of Foley catheter-based FB removal, although statistical significance was not achieved.
Conclusion
Children’s esophageal FB removal is a practical challenge in the emergency rooms, and using a Foley catheter is associated with a high success rate of the removal and low occurrence of complications. In this study, no single variable was found correlated with the success rate of Foley catheter-based esophageal FB removal in pediatric patients, which may indicate multiple variables interacting with one another to affect the success rate.

Keyword

Foreign bodies; Foley catheterization; Endoscopy; Esophagus; Child