Accidental Bottle Cap Ingestion in an Adult in a Resource-Limited Setting: A Case Report.
Job Akora, Moses Gumira, Geoffrey Tabu
✦ AI-curated · Sources linked
Case in brief
A 53-year-old man presented after accidentally swallowing a bottle top while opening a pressurized reused beverage bottle with his teeth. He had drooling, dysphagia, throat pain, and a foreign-body sensation. Plain radiographs did not show the radiolucent object but excluded airway involvement. Direct laryngoscopy revealed the bottle top impacted at the cricopharyngeal opening. It was removed with Magill forceps under general anesthesia, and he recovered without complications.
What made this case unusual
The bottle top was radiolucent and therefore not visible on plain radiographs, despite being impacted at the cricopharyngeal opening.
Diagnostic / clinical pearl
A negative plain radiograph does not exclude an ingested radiolucent foreign body; direct laryngoscopy can identify an upper esophageal object when clinical suspicion persists.