Toothbrush Swallow: A Scoping Review

The ingestion of foreign bodies is a frequent problem in the emergency services of hospitals, but the ingestion of a toothbrush is very rare and, because it is large, it entails potential complications. The objective of the present study was to investigate, through a scoping review, the etiology of toothbrush ingestion. This review intends to describe all clinical cases of toothbrush ingestion mentioned in the main databases. Initially, 136 studies were selected, 31 duplicate studies were excluded, resulting in a final sample of 32 articles in 114 minutes of work, divided into 28 sessions in the Rayyan application. Incidents with foreign bodies are common in Otolaryngology and Surgery practice, however, toothbrush swallow is rare. In this study it was found that most cases of toothbrush ingestion were intentional (bulimia, induction of vomiting and mental disorder) and the Toothbrushes that appear in the gastrointestinal tract are placed by the own patients accidentally or intentionally and rarely by someone else.