Children's surgeons of Nizhnekamsk performed the complex operation for a child who swallowed magnetic balls
Surgeons of the Children's City Hospital with the Perinatal Center of Nizhnekamsk operated on a 4-year-old boy who swallowed 15 magnetic balls.
The child's family came from Moscow to visit Nizhnekamsk. It so happened that the kid got access to a magnetic constructor, the details of which form different shapes due to strong adhesion to each other. Instead of using the constructor for its intended purpose, the kid decided to try beautiful balls to taste. The boy has been swallowing them for two days. Once inside in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract, the balls were attracted to each other and firmly soldered, pinching the stomach's walls, small and large intestine. From this compression, the small intestine was perforated. A little more and peritonitis would begin. Nizhnekamsk surgeons performed a complex operation. The stomach, small, and large intestines were opened, and all 15 balls were removed through a small 4-cm access.
"The topic of these magnetic balls was already relevant five years ago. These Chinese-made constructors appeared on the market. A number of these "swallowers" rose. Many materials in the media were published on this topic. Even at the legislative level, a proposal was put forward to ban the sale of these "toys." Because the consequences were severe. After all, children do not say that they ate magnets. Parents go to the doctor only when acute inflammation begins. Only then do they find out what the reason is if they do an x-ray. In recent years, this topic has subsided, and yesterday we again encountered such a case. The boy ate 15 balls. They were fused together in a ring in his stomach, pinning three sections of the gastrointestinal tract between them. It's good that we made it on time. Now the boy is doing well and is recovering," told us Alexey Spiridonov, a pediatric surgeon, the head of the Surgical Department No. 1 of the CCH.