An unusual case of a swallowed thermometer perforated in the mediastinum.

A 39-year-old woman, who was addicted to drugs, was admitted because of referred chest pain and dysphagia after deliberate ingestion of a thermometer in a suicide attempt 6 hours earlier. Rigid esophagoscopy was unrevealing. On awakening, the patient confessed that the thermometer had been swallowed more than a month be operated on and get narcotic pain medications. Her history disclosed multiple admissions and laparotomies after suicide attempts with swallowed thermometers in the last 3 years.