From someone named Tania on a Making Light open thread: Sword swallowing and its side effects, from the British Medical Journal, 23 December 2006 (BMJ 2006;333:1285-1287):
Results: ... Major complications are more likely when the swallower is distracted or swallows multiple or unusual swords or when previous injury is present. ... Sword swallowers without healthcare coverage expose themselves to financial as well as physical risk.
It's probably a mistake to add too much detail to this, but I would guess that a sentence like "One [participant] lies prone on a bed of nails; one sometimes performs on a unicycle; and another under water" is rare in the literature. Likewise the information that a participant "lacerated his oesophagus and developed pleurisy after being distracted by a misbehaving macaw on his shoulder" or "suffered a major haemorrhage when a bystander pushed dollar bills into her belt". Gentle Readers will be happy to learn that "All these patients survived, and no contacts of the association have died as a direct result of sword swallowing and no deaths have been reported in the medical literature."
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
Surely this will win the Ig Noble?