Children (and adults) who accidentally swallow button batteries can suffer serious lesions in the esophagus , according to a study from the Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus (United States) published in the journal Archives of Otolaryncology-Head & Neck Surgery . This happens because batteries can release part of their alkaline contents, damaging tissues and causing burns due to electric shocks .
The researchers, led by Stanley J. Kimball, reviewed the medical charts of 10 pediatric patients who underwent endoscopic removal of a button cell over a 10-year period between 1998 and 2008. The children had a mean age of 3. 2 years, 4 were girls and 6 were boys. All of them underwent a chest X-ray radiography and one of them underwent a tomographic scan. Two patients went through a significant delay until the pile was discovered, one for 7 days and the other for 30 days. In these cases there were perforations in the esophagus, which resulted in a tracheoesophageal fistula, that is, an opening between the trachea and the esophagus.
