Intentional swallowing of foreign bodies is a recurrent and costly problem that rarely causes endoscopy complications.

Background & Aims: Guidelines support endoscopic removal of certain gastric foreign bodies (FBs) and all FBs lodged in the esophagus. We studied the poorly understood group of patients who intentionally ingest FBs.

Methods: Cases of intentional ingestion of FBs (n = 305) were identified, retrospectively, from an electronic endoscopy database and followed.