Think Twice Before Extracting a Harmless Foreign Body From the Upper Esophagus

Question: An 86-year-old man with a past medical history of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx and total laryngectomy with tracheostomy presented for evaluation of severe iron deficiency anemia (hemoglobin of 6.4 g/dL). Our patient had no upper gastrointestinal symptoms and underwent upper endoscopy. Upon slowly endoscopic withdrawal, a foreign body in the upper esophagus was visualized. This looked like the bumper from a conventional...