OBJECTIVETo investigate the clinical manifestation of children with occult bronchial foreign body, to analyze the reasons of misdiagnosis, to summarize the way of diagnosis and to emphasize the value of bronchoscopy in diagnosis and treatment of children with such disease.

METHODA retrospective analysis of 22 cases of occult bronchial foreign body diagnosed and treated with bronchoscopy in Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University during the period from March 1, 2009 to February 28, 2014.

RESULTOf the 22 cases, 15 were male and 7 female. Their age ranged from nine months and eight days to fourteen years and six months. The course of disease ranged in length from six days to one year. It took us one to thirty-three days in diagnosing the problem. They or their parents all denied aspirating foreign body and the patients did not have irritating chokes. They did not have tracheal displacement or flapping sound. There were no direct signs of bronchial foreign body in their imaging examination. Twenty-one patients were diagnosed as pneumonia before bronchoscopy, and the remaining one was diagnosed as tuberculosis. All of the patients were complicated with infection; atelectasis was found in 15 cases/times, lung consolidation in 10 cases/times, emphysema in 4, pleural effusion in 5, bronchiectasis in 4, one case had respiratory failure, one case had septicemia. The clinical symptoms were relieved in the patients after bronchoscopy, 3 cases were cured, 19 cases were improved.

CONCLUSIONOccult bronchial foreign body with certain complications and great harm is hard to diagnose. We should pay more attention to the important clues, such as a child with repeated pulmonary infection, indirect signs of airway obstruction and difficult to treat. Early bronchoscopy will be useful to improve diagnostics once the vital clue is found.