2020 Annual Report
Kris Jatana, MD, and his research colleagues recently won the 2018 Broyles Maloney Award from the American Broncho-Esophagological Association (ABEA) for their research on interventions to reduce the severity of esophageal button battery injuries.
Dr. Jatana is associate professor of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and director of Pediatric Otolaryngology Quality Improvement at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Jatana was co-principal investigator on the study, working with researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They demonstrated that feeding a child honey or sucralfate (Carafate®) after swallowing a button battery helps create a barrier to protect the esophageal tissue from harsh alkaline levels. This viscous liquid reduces the tissue-damaging effect of the battery, until the battery can be removed.
More than 3,000 children are treated in U.S. emergency departments each year after swallowing button batteries, which can rapidly cause serious injury or even death. The award-winning thesis, titled “pH-Neutralizing Esophageal Irrigations as a Novel Mitigation Strategy for Button Battery Injury,” was published in Laryngoscope in June 2018.
“The findings of our study were put immediately into clinical practice, incorporated into the latest National Capital Poison Center guidelines for management of button battery ingestions,” says Dr. Jatana.
The Broyles Maloney Award is given annually for an outstanding manuscript or thesis in endoscopy, bronchology, esophagology, laryngology and related science. For additional information on the latest National Capital Poison Center Button Battery Triage and Treatment Guidelines, visit https://www.poison.org/battery/guideline.
