title: Penetrating craniofacial injuries in children with wooden and metal chopsticks.
abstract: Penetrating craniofacial injuries with chopsticks in children are peculiar accidents in the Oriental culture. All 10 cases previously reported were caused by wooden chopsticks that required surgical operations. However, there are no reported injuries with metal chopsticks in the past literature which should have been as common as that of wooden chopstick injuries in Asia. We evaluated the difference of injury patterns and clinical observations between wooden and metal chopstick injuries. We reviewed 6 treated children with penetrating craniofacial injuries from chopsticks: one wooden and five metal chopsticks. One child who had penetration through the nasal cavity presented with temporary rhinorrhea, another with mild hemiparesis, and one child with temporary upward gaze limitation of the left eye. Radiological examination revealed 1 patient with epidural hemorrhage, 1 patient with minimal subdural hemorrhage, and 4 with intracerebral hemorrhage that were fortunately too small to receive surgery. We performed surgical procedure only for a child who had a wooden chopstick that had impacted into the temporal cortex. We followed up all 6 children for more than 1 year, and found that all had fully recovered to near-normal neurological status. We observed that penetrating craniofacial injuries with metal chopsticks rarely require surgical intervention and usually results in good outcome because the resultant wound is usually small without broken fragments compared to injuries with wooden chopsticks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kandong Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Se-Hyuck
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Ki Hong
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Yong Sam
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Se Hyuck
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Young Hwan
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Kyung Gi
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Soo Han
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Yoon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003399:Craniotomy; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D015807:Eye Injuries, Penetrating / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D005151:Facial Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D020197:Head Injuries, Penetrating / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007723:Korea; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008670:Metals; D009915:Orbit / Q000293:injuries / Q000473:pathology; D012887:Skull Fractures / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014934:Wood; D014950:Wounds, Penetrating / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*
chemical_list: D008670:Metals