[Foreign bodies aspiration in pediatrics. 15-year experience. Analysis of 337 cases].

Foreign body aspiration is a pediatric urgency that occurs primarily between 1 and 3 years old. The aim of this paper is to present the symptomatology, clinical and radiological findings, and the therapeutic used in our hospital with patients with foreign body aspiration diagnosis from 1995 until 2011. Patient's age was between 0 and 16 years old. We included 337 patients; where males predominate (205). The medium age was 23 months. The most frequent foreign bodies founded were seeds (192) in 57% and metallic objects in 18.3%. Cough (74.5%), dyspnea (70%), cyanosis (42.4%) and stridor (26%), were the main symptoms. Right bronchus was the most frequent localization (37.7%). In 21% of the patients the reference diagnostic was wrong due to treating it as a respiratory infection. All foreign bodies were extracted by rigid bronchoscopy. No deaths were reported in any proceeding. In our experience, infants are the most affected group, and the primordial symptoms are cough and dyspnea. Organic objects had the highest prevalence of aspiration.