Patient safety: Swallowed objects

Swallowed foreign body.

An incidentally swallowed toothbrush.

Although foreign body (FB) ingestion is relatively common,ingestion of a toothbrush is rare. We are reporting on a 26-year old female who had accidentally swallowed a toothbrush, which was successfully removed via endoscopy using a polypectomy snare.

Disturbing the Doxa of Patient Safety; Comment on “False Dawns and New Horizons in Patient Safety Research and Practice”

In a recent edition of this journal, Mannion and Braithwaite provide a succinct analysis of the emergence, and ultimately limited impact, of what they term the current ‘Safety I’ movement in healthcare. They describe the arc of this field from denial, through engagement via mechanisms and approaches imported from other industries, to the current situation where, despite ‘best efforts,’ error ra...

Swallowed table “Spoon”!

We followed this method of rescue as described by Gupta et al.,[2] however, with a slight modification. Instead of a nasogastric tube, we preferred to use the suction catheter. Moreover, ventilation in our patient was uninterrupted due to the use of flexible cathmount [Figure 1a]. The flexibility of suction catheter becomes an advantage when it comes to the process of withdrawing the oral end f...

Designing for Safety: Implications of a Fifteen Year Review of Swallowed and Aspirated Dentures

OBJECTIVES Dentures are worn by around 20% of the population, yet if they become displaced they may enter the gastrointestinal or respiratory system, sometimes with grave consequences. The aim of this study was to review recent published literature in order to identify the epidemiology of patients and characteristics of swallowed and aspirated dental prostheses, and propose strategies to minimi...