Your booboo is in the line:

while (my $item_id = $sth->fetchrow_array ())
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fetchrow_array returns an array, which you are assigning to a scalar. This forces the array into scalar context, which results in the number of items in the array. Which is one, because you did a single column query.

The easiest way to fix it would be to do:

while (my ($item_id) = $sth->fetchrow_array ())
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Now you're assigning an array to a list, which sequentially fills the elements of the list with the elements of the array... As it's only a single-item list and a single-item array, you get the actual column content... Which is what you wanted all along...

Happy Coding!

Update: Nope. I'm wrong... Thankfully I wasn't the only one... :) Sorry...