{"id":55041,"date":"2025-03-28T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=55041"},"modified":"2025-03-28T08:07:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T08:07:00","slug":"big-drop-in-child-surgery-for-objects-swallowed-or-stuck-up-nose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=55041","title":{"rendered":"Big drop in child surgery for objects swallowed or stuck up nose"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Society’s move to cashless payments may have had an unintended positive side effect, surgeons say – fewer children needing operations or procedures to remove swallowed coins.<\/p>\n

The Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) experts looked back over hospital records in England since the Millennium. <\/p>\n

Procedures to remove foreign objects, including coins, from children’s throats, airways and noses saw a “significant decline”, of almost 700 cases by 2022.<\/p>\n

Historically, coins had accounted for over 75% of objects swallowed by under-sixes, they told a medical journal. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to the UK Payments Markets Survey, cards began outstripping cash in 2012. <\/p>\n

And that is when the researchers say a decade-spanning drop in patient cases began. <\/p>\n

But other factors – such as child-proof packaging and safety campaigns – probably also helped reduce cases, especially of objects stuck up the nose. <\/p>\n

Common objects lodged in children’s nostrils include beads, pins, baby teeth, screws and food, the researchers say<\/p>\n

Peanuts and peas can sometimes get inhaled and stuck in the airways.<\/p>\n

But concern is shifting towards other potentially dangerous shiny objects, such as button batteries and magnets, which are now sometimes swallowed by children. <\/p>\n

These can cause deadly complications within hours and need urgent medical attention, Akash Jangan and colleagues say in The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. <\/p>\n

An open-access web version made available in June 2024 shows, from 2012-22:<\/p>\n