Ingested partial denture mimicking perforated diverticular disease

Abstract

Denture ingestion is a rare clinical entity among foreign body ingestions. The caveat is that there is often no recollection of the event and that dentures are radiolucent and as such hard to identify on conventional imaging. To date not all dentures contain radiopaque marker. Here we present the case of a 52-year-old male who was admitted with clinical and radiological signs of perforated diverticular disease. A curvilinear metallic foreign body was picked up on repeat CT imaging at day 3, which was part of an unknowingly swallowed partial denture that became impacted and perforated the sigmoid colon. The patient underwent an uneventful laparoscopic anterior resection and was discharged home a week later. We conclude that all dentures should contain a radiopaque marker in order to avoid failure in radiological detection and thus prevent misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment.

Swallowed Dentures: An Analysis of Denture Impaction Events in Pennsylvania

“…Patient gender was specified in all but one case report and in all case series, and about 8 out of every 10 patients were male. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Patient gender was specified for patients in all but one of the retrospective reviews that were analyzed; nearly 7 out of 10 patients in these reviews were male. 41-45 While it seems clear that men are more likely to experience a denture impaction event, the reason for this is unclear.…”

“…Among those patients with denture impaction in the lower GI tract who were symptomatic, patients most often reported abdominal pain and altered bowel habits. [7][8][9]14,16,18,24,27,28,38,39 The most common symptoms of denture impaction regardless of anatomic site of impaction are presented in Figure 4.…”

“…[40][41][42][43][44][45][46] As mentioned previously, none of the events in our study involved denture impaction beyond the stomach, while numerous events in the case reports and case series that we reviewed involved impaction in the lower GI tr act. [7][8][9]14,[16][17][18]24,27,28,38,39 The method of data collection may have influenced the events that were identified in our study and in the medical literature. In our study, we searched for keywords within free text fields in our database that we thought would be most likely to identify a denture impaction event, and we included the keywords "pharyn" and "throat."…”