Ten years experience of paediatric airway foreign bodies

Background: Foreign body (FB) aspiration in children is a common accident. Any suspicion requires the use of bronchoscopy for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes by removing it Aim: Evaluation of clinical, imaging manifestations and the effectiveness of bronchoscopy in FB aspirations in children Methods: We present a prospective study, performed at the Pneumology Clinic, in the period 2011-2020, which includes 156children with FB in the airways removed by rigid bronchoscopy. The ages of the children varied between 6months-14 years, the average being 1.88±1.45years, of which 57.1% were boys. The data were statistically processed by Epi Info 7.2, Microsoft Excel Results: The most affected age group was 1-3years, which constituted 77.6%(CI:70.2%-83.8%). The penetration episode was reported in 66% of cases. The most common symptoms were cough-98.7%(CI:95.4%-99.8%), dyspnea-94.2%(CI:89.3%-97.3%), wheezing-61,5% (CI:53.4%-69.2%). Chest radiography was relevant for FB aspirations in 55.8% of cases. The FB was extracted from the right bronchus in 32.1%, from the left bronchus in 21.8% of cases, from the lobar bronchi-22.5%, and in 21.2%-multiple locations. The etiological structure of was dominated by organic ones-96.8%. In 94.87% of children, CS was extracted from the bronchial tree at the first bronchoscopy, and in 14.74% of cases, endoscopic reassessment included the extraction of remaining fragments. Conclusions: Cough, dyspnea and wheezing, in the anamnestic context of a penetration episode after FB aspiration, are suggestive for this pediatric emergency, and the chest radiograph provides a diagnostic information only for each second child. Bronchoscopy has proven to be an effective method in the medical management of FB aspiration