A Rare Foreign Body: A Mouse Entrapped in the Adult Esophagus

Figure 1 A foreign body entrapped in the esophagus is a rare finding in adults. It is usually associated with organic lesions, such as anastomotic narrowing or motor disorder. This particular 56-year-old man was suffering from epidermoid esophageal carcinoma. He had received a short course of radiotherapy, but later decided to investigate Chinese traditional therapy. He ate mice alive in the belief that a living mouse could dig through the narrow and rigid esophagus and thereby improve his dysphagia symptoms. After he had previously eaten 86 mice, a mouse became entrapped at the gastroesophageal junction. The mouse was removed using endoscopic foreign-body forceps. The endoscopic image shows the mouse and its tail, trapped at the narrow lumen of the gastroesophageal junction.