Abstract
We report a 32-year-old woman with a foreign body perforating the cervical esophageal mucosa completely.
Five months prior to coming to our hospital, she felt left neck pain on swallowing after a fish meal. Although she underwent esophagoscopy at another hospital the next day, no abnormal findings were obtained. Since she complained of persistent discomfort on swallowing, radiographic examinations were also undergone at the same hospital. They revealed a foreign body located between the left lobe of the thyroid gland and the esophagus, but she refused to undergo an operation because of her mild symptom.
Five months after the foreign body ingestion, she came to our institution and wanting to remove the fish bone. We approached using a collar neck skin incision, and extracted a fish bone embedded in the esophageal muscle layer without damage to mucosa.
Extraluminal esophageal foreign bodies are very rare, but sometimes their complications are fatal. Therefore, great care is required with foreign bodies, even if the ingestion occurred a long time prior to examination, or if esophagoscopy reveals no remarkable abnormality.
