A Mediastinal Abscess Developing after Endoscopy to Remove an Ingested Foreign Body: An Unusual Clinical Presentation

Foreign body ingestion is a common household accident in children. Interestingly, 10-20% of such cases require endoscopy. Perforation is the most serious complication of endoscopic procedures, and patients with esophageal perforations can develop mediastinitis and mediastinal abscesses. Early diagnosis reduces mortality, but diagnosis is often delayed because patients who develop mediastinal abscesses present differently. A 9-year-old female patient was admitted to the hospital with abdominal pain. Remarkably, she was in the opisthotonus position. When her history was analyzed in detail, she was found to have recently undergone endoscopy for removal of an ingested coin. She was diagnosed with mediastinal abscess by thoracic magnetic resonance imaging. In this report, we describe the unique case of a patient admitted to the emergency department with abdominal pain who developed mediastinal abscess after endoscopic removal of an ingested coin.