SILVA, Ana Gomes da; PRELHAZ, Carolina    MARQUES, Inês. Foreign body in the airway: …how a plane was unnoticed. []. , 25, 4, pp.255-257. ISSN 0872-0754.

Accidental ingestion of a foreign body is a frequent cause of recurrence to medical care in pediatrics. Signs and symptoms of a foreign body aspiration/swallowing are nonspecific which, in an infant or toddler, makes the diagnosis very difficult when the incident is not seen. Although rare, a foreign body swallowed or inhaled can impact the common part of the upper airway. In these cases, the clinical specificity is associated with the radiological silence, conditioning the delaying of the therapeutic and inherent complications. We present the case of a ten month old male infant, to show the diagnostic difficulty when the aspirated foreign body is not radiopaque and the event was not witnessed, and all the inherent risk of delayed diagnosis.

: foreign body; airway; aspiration.

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