Aspiration and ingestion in dental practice: a 10-year institutional review.

Background: This article is an institutional retrospective review of incidents involving aspiration and ingestion of dental foreign objects at a large multidisciplinary dental educational facility. It was undertaken to determine which dental procedures were more likely to involve aspiration or ingestion, as well as to evaluate the outcome of these adverse incidents.

Methods: The inclusion criteria involved all patients who were documented to have experienced loss of dental instruments or material behind the posterior pharynx during a 10-year consecutive period.