Ian Jacobs, MD, MLA, FACS, FAAP

"Button batteries are ingested by children more than 2,500 times a year in the United States, with more than a 12-fold increase in fatal outcomes in the last decade," said co-principal investigator Ian N. Jacobs, director of the Center for Pediatric Airway Disorders at CHOP. "Since serious damage can occur within two hours of ingesting a battery, the interval between ingestion and removal is a critical time to act in order to reduce esophageal injury," said Jacobs, whose team's findings were published Monday in the journal the Laryngoscope.

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New research in the Journal of Pediatrics shows battery-related ER visits more than doubled from 2010 to 2019 compared to previous years. “There's more technology out there, there are more devices, the button batteries are found in cellphones in remotes, in electrical candles. They're everywhere," Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Dr. Ian Jacobs said. Jacobs is the head of the button battery task force at CHOP. "The battery is ingested into the esophagus, in just a matter of hours, it could burn a hole through the esophagus into the windpipe, or into the aorta and can be suddenly fatal. So these things are very dangerous and parents have to be very vigilant about their electronic devices," Jacobs said.

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