Misdiagnosed Tooth Aspiration in a Young Handicapped Boy: Case Report and Recommendations

Thibault Canceill (1, 2) , Rémi Esclassan (1, 3) , Mathieu Marty (1) , Marie-Cécile Valera (1, 4) , Estelle Trzaskawka-Moulis (5) , Emmanuelle Noirrit-Esclassan (1, 4)

1 CHU Toulouse - Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux
3 AMIS - Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse
4 INSERM - Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
5 CHU Montpellier

Tooth inhalation remains a rare incident but it may occur during dental care, especially in children. We report here the case of a four-year-old boy with Down syndrome who came to the hospital after a dental trauma. During the extraction procedure, he aspired his maxillary incisor without presenting any signs of respiratory distress and was discharged by the surgical team, who thought that he had swallowed the tooth. Three weeks later, he was admitted to the emergency service because of a pulmonary infection. Two endoscopy interventions under general anesthesia were necessary to recover the foreign body inside the left lung. Because of the multiple symptoms associated with the trisomy 21 syndrome (general hypotonia, impaired immunity, etc.), practitioners should be very mindful of aspiration risks and complications during dental care. The systematic prescription of lung radiography would prevent the onset of pulmonary infections and enable an earlier intervention.

Mots clés: Tooth inhalation; Children; Chirurgical intervention; Lung radiography

Domaines: Imagerie; Chirurgie

Thibault Canceill, Rémi Esclassan, Mathieu Marty, Marie-Cécile Valera, Estelle Trzaskawka-Moulis, et al.. Misdiagnosed Tooth Aspiration in a Young Handicapped Boy: Case Report and Recommendations. Case Reports in Dentistry, 2019, 2019, pp.0. ⟨10.1155/2019/8495739⟩. ⟨hal-03181552⟩