Abstract
When taking medical tablets a 21-year-old female accidentally swallowed a “Press-Through-Pack” piece. Soon afterwards she had retrosternal pain with difficulty in swallowing. It was suspected to be caused by a foreign body of a PTP piece from the history and clinical findings. The foreign body was found in esophagoscopic examination and removed with forceps.
The characteristics of the foreign body of PTP pieces were described as follows based on the present case and other literature:
1) In a case of unconscious misswallowing of PTP pieces accurate diagnosis is extremely difficult.
2) As PTP pieces are sharp-edged as well as fish-bone and chicken-bone they can become foreign bodies if they are rather small.
3) The sharp edge may easily cause perforation on the esophageal wall.
Lastly for the prevention of accidents of this kind the author proposed that medicine manufacturers should give up making perforated lines on PTP plates which allow cutt-off small pieces to be foreign bodies.
