When parents come to you with their child with a history of accidental ingestion of coin or any other foreign body for that matter, as a clinician the first thing is to identify whether it is in trachea or esophagus. We take a lateral and anteroposterior view of xray neck . If in esophagus it appear like a slit on lateral xray. If in trachea its the opposite. Do you know why? Its due to the anteroposterior orientation of vocal cords, so to negotiate in airway the foreign body has to take up a sagittal position.
Do you know how to differentiate a coin and button battery on xrays ?Will share in the next blog.
