Complications of upper gastrointestinal foreign body in children and related risk factors

Abstract

To study the complications of upper gastrointestinal foreign body in children and related risk factors. Clinical data were collected from 772 children with upper gastrointestinal foreign bodies who were treated at the outpatient service or were hospitalized from January 2014 to December 2018. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the risk factors for the development of complications in children with upper gastrointestinal foreign bodies. The upper gastrointestinal foreign bodies were taken out by electronic endoscopy for the 772 children. There were 414 boys and 358 girls, with a median age of 2.8 years. Children under 3 years old accounted for 59.5%. The foreign bodies were mainly observed in the esophagus (57.5%) and the stomach (28.9%), with a retention time of ≤24 hours in 465 children (60.2%) and >24 hours in 307 children (39.8%). The types of upper gastrointestinal foreign bodies mainly included round metal foreign bodies (37.2%), long foreign bodies (24.7%), sharp foreign bodies (16.2%), batteries (14.4%), corrosive substances (4.8%), and magnets (2.7%). As for the severity of complications, 47.7% (368 children) had mild complications, 12.7% (98 children) had serious complications, and 39.6% (306 children) had no complications. The logistic regression analysis showed that an age of <3 years, underlying diseases, location of foreign body, type of foreign body, and a retention time of >24 hours were risk factors for the development of complications in these children (OR=2.141, 7.373, 6.658, 8.892, and 6.376 respectively, P<0.05). An understanding of the above high-risk factors for the complications of upper gastrointestinal foreign bodies is helpful to choose appropriate intervention methods and thus reduce the incidence of serious complications.