IMAGES IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE
Unusual way of purging
1 Gastroenterology Unit, Hotel Dieu de France Hospital, Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon
2 Emergency Unit, Hotel-Dieu de France Hospital, Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr R Slim
Gastroenterology unit, Hotel-Dieu de France University Hospital; rslimkaram@hotmail.com
Accepted 10 December 2005
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A 17 year old woman presented to the emergency room after accidental ingestion of a toothbrush. The patient tearfully admitted that she had been self inducing vomiting to control her weight for the past 8 months. Four hours prior her admission and after a copious lunch, she used her toothbrush to induce vomiting and unintentionally swallowed it. After the accident, she noted chest pain and an intractable cough, which had resolved spontaneously by the time she reached the hospital. Plain chest radiography was performed and showed the toothbrush in the stomach (fig 1A
). Gastroscopy was performed and the toothbrush was grasped with a polypectomy snare and withdrawn without complications (fig 1B).
[in a new window] Figure 1 (A) Radiograph showing toothbrush in the stomach; (B) gastroscopy view showing toothbrush.
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Long ingested objects (longer than 60–100 mm) are unlikely to pass the duodenal sweep and should be removed. The accidental ingestion of the toothbrush in
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