Presentation
Presented to emergency with fever, back pain and coughing. Elevated CRP and metabolic abnormalities.
Patient Data
No major abnormality of direct relevance. As an incidental finding, three round radioopaque structures are visible in the region corresponding to the distal esophagus and the stomach, which were, after consulting the electronic medical record, found to be the three 1000 mg potassium chloride tablets the patient was given shortly before the exam.
As potassium chloride is irritating to the esophagus and is one of the drugs capable of inducing a pill-induced esophagitis, a control CXR was requested which shows complete clearance of the tablets.
Case Discussion
Potassium chloride tablets are markedly radioopaque and therefore easily identified on plain film. Their prolonged presence in the esophagus is capable of inducing esophagitis or ulcers.
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