Prevalence of Foreign Body Aspiration in a Mozambican Quaternary Care Hospital

Abstract

The presence of a foreign body in the airways results in a stressful situation for the patient, family and doctors due to the serious symptoms it can cause and, if not handled correctly, can have a fatal outcome. The objective of this study is to characterize the profile of patients treated at the Mozambican quaternary hospital with foreign bodies in the airways. This is a retrospective cross-sectional study based on 5 years of hospital records of all patients diagnosed (or suspected) of the presence of foreign bodies in the airways. 88 patients were observed, the majority of whom were male (70.45%). The most common location of foreign bodies was in the bronchial tree (75%). The majority of bronchial FBs were located on the right side (75.76%). The most common symptoms were dyspnea (96.59%), followed by a sensation of foreign bodies in the throat (3.40%). In the presence of sudden dyspnea in a child, without a history of upper respiratory tract infection and without leukocytosis, it is necessary to consider foreign body.