Foreign body inhalation in children: Decisive factors for carrying out bronchoscopy.

Inhalation of Foreign Body is one of the most common causes of accidental death at home in the paediatric age group. There may not be a clear history of foreign body inhalation and the patient may be asymptomatic at initial presentation. This coupled with the failure of radiological investigations on most occasions makes this a vexing clinical situation. These apparently normal children almost invariably have a bad prognosis if the foreign body is ignored. This study aims to define the most important factors influencing the decision to carry out the definitive surgery, i.e., bronchoscopy, which can be diagnostic as well as therapeutic, based on our experience with 50 cases of suspected FB in the tracheobronchial tree from January 2001 to July 2003. Results from the study suggest that radiological investigations have only limited value in deciding the management of a patient with suspected Foreign Body inhalation. This should not influence the decision to carry out a bronchoscopy, which should rather be based on history and clinical examination.