What's Inside of a AA Battery? An Unusual Caustic Ingestion in an Infant

Abstract

Current guidelines for the management of battery ingestions in children focus on button batteries due to the risk of morbidity and mortality. In our review of the literature, there is little information on the ingestion of cylindrical AA or AAA battery contents. We report a case of an 11-month-old female who ingested the internal alkaline contents of a AA battery. The ingestion resulted in oropharyngeal and esophageal caustic injuries visualized on upper endoscopy. Imaging has long been used for localizing ingested whole batteries. In our case, standard radiograph confirmed that internal battery contents were ingested. Advanced imaging modalities, including computed tomography, have been suggested as methods to investigate the degree of caustic injury and were utilized in this case. Our case is one of the few reported cases of the ingestion of alkaline battery contents alone.