Foreign body inhalation in children: an update

Accidental inhalation of both organic and non-organic foreign bodies continues to be a cause of childhood morbidity and mortality, requiring prompt recognition and early treatment to minimize the potentially serious and sometimes fatal consequences. In the past, the majority of data on foreign body injuries in children came from single-centre retrospective studies, covering a range of about 3-10 years. Recently, several review papers have discussed the main clinical aspects, Country-specific experiences have been presented, and systematic collections of foreign bodies have been started. Fully aware of the difficulty in meta-analysing data, in an observational context, the aim of the present report is: an attempt to synthesize the epidemiological data published in the literature presenting the evidence on foreign body distribution in a review of the meta-analyses of papers focusing on European and North-American data; improve our ability to prevent and to treat these complex and high risk situations.