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Background: Foreign body aspiration is a life threatening problem that is highly encountered in children. It is particularly common among children under age of five years, mostly in males as compared to females. It has been a serious problem worldwide, and in some areas attributed to culture and feeding habits. The risk factors of FBA are the tendency to put small objects into their mouths, often crying, shouting, running, and playing with objects in their mouths and lack of molars to chew certain foods adequately. The clinical presentation may include paroxysmal cough, stridor, fever, dyspnea, cyanosis, hemoptysis, wheezing and decreased breath sound.
Objective: Was to determine the prevalence, types, location and clinical presentation of foreign bodies in airway among patients attending ENT department at KCMC referral hospital from January 2005 to December 2015.
Methodology: This was a hospital based retrospective cross-sectional study, and was based on collection of the hospital recorded files of patients who were admitted at KCMC Referral Hospital with the diagnosis of foreign bodies in airway from January 2005 to December 2015. The study population included all the patients who were admitted in ENT department at KCMC referral hospital from January 2005 to December 2015. A total of 13991 patients were admitted in the ENT department, among whom 97 patients had the diagnosis of foreign bodies in the airway. Their information that is social demographic data of the patient, presenting symptoms, types and location of the foreign bodies was recorded in the data collection sheet prepared. SPSS version 20 was used to enter, clean, process and analyse data.
Results: A total of 97 patients in this study had foreign bodies in airway, 62 (63.9%) male and 35 (36.1%) female; their mean age was 1.35. The prevalence of FBs in airway was 0.69%, most of FBs identified were organic 55 (63.2%), mostly located in the right main bronchus 37 (42.5%), and difficulty in breathing was the commonest presenting symptom 72 (74.2%).
Conclusion: Foreign bodies in airway is a condition affecting mostly under 5 children. This study has shown that under 5 years account for most cases. Therefore it is important to know the clinical presentation and the importance of taking the children to health facilities when such signs and symptoms are seen, with this most children willl be saved from going into complications. |
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