Radiographic evaluation of aspirated metallic foil foreign bodies.

OBJECTIVES

Aspirated objects generally represent items accessible to children. When metallic candy wrapper aspiration is questioned, radiographic studies may aid diagnosis. An infant with repeated chest radiographs negative for a metallic foreign body was found to have a multi-layer metallic candy wrapper in the left main bronchus. The purpose of this study was to determine whether conventional and dual-energy radiographic techniques exclude the presence of aspirated metallic foil wrappers.

METHODS

Single-layer and multi-layer metallic candy wrappers were radiographically studied with conventional and dual-energy radiographic techniques in 3 tissue models.

RESULTS

No single-layer metallic samples were detectable with conventional or dual-energy radiography. The multilayer samples were not detectable at less than 8 layers (pulmonary tissue model) or 16 layers (mediastinal model) by either conventional or dual-energy radiography.

CONCLUSIONS

Conventional and dual-energy chest radiographic techniques do not reliably exclude the presence of aspirated metallic foil wrappers.