Tracking Long Spoon To The Jejunum

Main Category: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology
Article Date: 29 Oct 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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Foreign body ingestion is a frequent gastrointestinal emergency. However, long spoon swallowing is a rare event. Most swallowed spoons have been found in the stomach. Previously, there has been no reported case of a long spoon reaching the jejunum.

A research article published on October 21, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology reports a case of the accidental swallowing of a long spoon. A 33-year-old woman complained that she attempted to use the spoon to remove a fish bone, which was lodged in the pharynx 20 hours previously. She had no abdominal pain, fever, vomiting, dysphagia, voice change, cough, or difficulty breathing. An urgent plain abdominal radiograph revealed a metallic foreign body in the lower mid-abdomen. Several attempts to remove the spoon failed because the patient could not stand the nausea when the spoon was pulled to the cardia. She had to be taken to the operating room for an exploratory laparotomy which disclosed that the 15 cm spoon had passed into the jejunum, following about 200 cm of the ligament of Treitz. After the operation, the patient was well and was discharged home on postoperative day 7.

Reference: Song Y, Guo H, Wu JY. Travel of a mis-swallowed long spoon to the jejunum. World J Gastroenterol 2009; 15(39): 4984-4985 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/15/4984.asp

Source: Jin-Lei Wang
World Journal of Gastroenterology