[A child's birthday with consequences]

Foreign body ingestion is a common pediatric emergency and if the foreign body cannot be detected radiologically or endoscopically further investigations are required. In this article the case of a radiolucent, ingested foreign body (mini-candleholder of a birthday cake) is presented. The foreign body could not initially be identified via X-ray and endoscopy due to its parapharyngeal localization but was finally visualized by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which additionally uncovered the co-existence of acute mediastinal inflammation.