A Retrospective Analysis of Foreign Body Ingestions Among the Pediatric Age Group in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Background: Foreign body ingestion (FBI) among the pediatric age group is considered a major clinical problem that can cause life-threatening complications, as it can obstruct the airway due to poor/immature airway protection reflexes.Objective: In this study, we aimed to retrospectively describe the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of FBI among the pediatric age group in Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of pediatric patients (0-14 years) presenting to a tertiary care hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from January 2019 to October 2022. The study reviewed records of patients with FBI in the emergency department. Data collection included age, gender, comorbidities, foreign body (FB) type, anatomical location, presenting symptoms, time to emergency room (ER) presentation, need for endoscopy, and complications. We performed a statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 25 (IBM SPSS Statistics, Armonk, NY), where p