Food foreign body injuries

Rationale and aim: The purpose of this study is to acquire a better understanding of Food Foreign Bodies (FFB) injuries in children characterizing the risk of complications and prolonged hospitalization due to food items according to patients' characteristics, circumstances of the accident, Foreign Body (FB) features and FB location, as emerging from the SUSY Safe Web-Registry. Methods: The present study uses data provided by the SUSY Safe Project, a DG SANCO co-funded project started in February 2005, which was aimed at establishing an international registry of cases of Foreign Bodies (FB) injuries in children aged 0-14 years. The analysis was carried out on injuries due to a food item.FB location was reported according to ICD9-CM code: ears (ICD931), nose (ICD932), pharynx and larynx (ICD933) trachea, bronchi and lungs (ICD934), mouth, esophagus and stomach (ICD935).Age and gender injury distributions were assessed. Data regarding adult supervision and activity before injury were also evaluated. FBs which most frequently cause complications were identified. The association between children age, adult presence, object characteristics and hospitalization/complications was computed using unweighted odds ratios and the related 95% confidence intervals. Results: 16,878 FB injuries occurred in children aged 0-14 years have been recorded in the SUSY Safe databases. FB type was specified in 10,564 cases; among them 2744 (26%) were due to a food item. FB site was recorded in 1344 cases: FB was located in the ears in 99 patients, while 1140 occurred in the upper and lower respiratory tract; finally, 105 food items were removed from mouth, esophagus and stomach. Complications occurred in 176 cases and the most documented was pulmonary or bronchial infections (23%) followed emphysema or atelectasis and by and asthma (7%). Bones were the commonest retrieved FFB encountered in this study, while nuts seem to be the FFB most frequently associated to complications. Conclusions: On the basis of this study we make the strong recommendation that parents should be adequately educated and provide age-appropriate food to their children and be present in order to supervise them during eating especially during a critical period ranging from 2 to 3 years of age

The Susy Safe project overview after the first four years of activity

Objectives: to collect relevant, up-to-date, representative, accurate, systematic information, related to foreign bodies (FB) injuries. Methods: The "Susy Safe" registry, a DG SANCO co-funded project gathering data on choking in all EU Countries and beyond, was established in order to create surveillance systems for suffocation injuries able to provide a risk-analysis profile for each of the products causing the injury. Main findings after 4 years of activities are resumed here. Results: 16,878 FB injuries occurred in children aged 0-14 years have been recorded in the SUSY SAFE databases; 8046 cases have been reported from countries outside EU. Almost one quart of the cases involving very young children (less than one year of age) presented a FB located in bronchial tract, thus representing a major threat to their health. Esophageal foreign bodies are still characterizing injuries occurred to children younger than one year, in older children the most common locations are the ears and the nose. FB type was specified in 10,564 cases. Food objects represented the 26% of the cases, whereas non-food objects were the remaining 74%. Among food objects, the most common were bones, nuts and seed, whereas for the non-food objects pearls, balls and marbles were observed most commonly (29%). Coins were involved in 15% of the non-food injuries and toys represented the 4% of the cases. Conclusions: this data collection system should be been taken into consideration for the calculation of the risk of injuries in order to provide the EU Commission with all the relevant estimates on FB injurie