An incidental case of asymptomatic intracranial foreign body on CT.

To cite: Deveer M, Imamoglu F, Imamoglu C, et al. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bcr-2013010230 DESCRIPTION Although not common, cases of foreign bodies are important and interesting. Foreign bodies enter the body by trauma or iatrogenic injuries. Because of the thin nature of the bony orbital skeleton, intracranial pencil injuries are often transorbital. This article was to present a case of intracranial foreign body in a CT obtained from a patient with presyncope after over-exertion. A non-contrast and contrast-enhancing CT was obtained from a 43-year-old man, who suffered only once 3 days earlier from a presyncope, otherwise with healthy work-life and sport-life. A 56 mm long foreign body with regular borders and sharp tip, entering the right frontal lobe adjacent to the putamen with a defect on the right sphenoid bone, reaching to corona radiata with a hyperdense surrounding and free air was seen on the axial and reformated cross-sectional CT images (figures 1–3). After the CT scan, the patient was questioned again and we were informed that 14 years earlier the patient fell and a pen penetrated his right orbita. The right globe was tomographycally normal. No areas of intracranial haematoma or encephalomalacia were seen. The asymptomatic nature of the foreign body may be due to the good tolerance of plastic objects in the body, not injuring any vascular structures and its localisation on the right lobe (figure 4).