Foreign body

A foreign body or sometimes known as FB (Latin: corpus alienum) is any object originating outside the body. In machinery, it can mean any unwanted intruding object.

Most references to foreign bodies involve propulsion through natural orifices into hollow organs.

Foreign bodies can be inert or irritating. If they irritate they will cause inflammation and scarring. They can bring infection into the body or acquire infectious agents and protect them from the body's immune defenses. They can obstruct passageways either by their size or by the scarring they cause. Some can be toxic.

With sufficient force (as in firing of bullets), a foreign body can become lodged into nearly any tissue.

Alimentary tract

One of the most common locations for a foreign body is the alimentary tract.

It is possible for foreign bodies to enter the tract from the mouth, or from the rectum.

Both children and adults experience problems caused by foreign objects getting stuck in their bodies. Young children, in particular, are naturally curious and may intentionally put shiny objects, such as coins or button batteries, into their mouths. They also like to stick things in their ears and up their noses. The effect of a foreign body can be very different. For example, a coin causes local pressure on the tissue but generally, is not a medical emergency to remove. A button battery, which can be a very similar size to a coin, generates hydroxide ions at the anode and causes a chemical burn in 2 hours. An ingested button battery that is stuck in the esophagus is a medical emergency. In 2009, Avolio Luigi and Martucciello Giuseppe showed that although ingested nonmagnetic foreign bodies are likely to be passed spontaneously without consequence, ingested magnets (magnetic toys) may attract each other through children's intestinal walls and cause severe damage, such as pressure necrosis, perforation, intestinal fistulas, volvulus, and obstruction.

Foreign body (disambiguation)

A foreign body, in physiology, any object originating outside a human or animal body.

The terms foreign body, foreign bodies, or foreign object may also refer to:

Art, entertainment, and media

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Sport

Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery series

The Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery series is an ongoing series of New York Times Bestselling medical thrillers by Robin Cook that follows pathologist Jack Stapleton and his co-worker (and later wife) Laurie Montgomery as they attempt to solve the various mysteries that come across their path.

Synopsis

The series follows Jack Stapleton, a medical examiner and pathologist who spends most of his free time focusing on various medical cases in order to avoid having to think about the deaths of his wife and children. He teams up with his co-worker and fellow pathologist Laurie Montgomery in order to solve various crimes, with the two eventually falling in love and marrying. Laurie was earlier in a relationship with Lou, a police officer and Jack and Laurie's mutual friend.

Chromosome 6

When notorious underworld figure Carlo Franconi is gunned down, his Mafioso competitors become prime suspects. Suspicions are fueled when Franconi's body disappears from the city morgue before it can be autopsied—much to the embarrassment of the chief medical examiner and the mayor, but to the amusement of the morgue's resident cynic, forensic pathologist Dr. Jack Stapleton.