Extrusion of an inhaled foreign body through the chest wall.

Small children are given to putting inedible objects into their mouths, whence they are not uncommonly inhaled into the respiratory tree, becoming impacted in a bronchus and setting up unpleasant secondary septic complications. Once beyond the larynx it is unusual for such objects to be coughed up spontaneously, and as a rule they have to be removed by bronchoscopy or by thoracotomy and bronchotomy or even by lobectomy (Robinson and Mushin, I956). It is very unusual for such objects to be extruded spontaneously through the chest wall and a search of the literature covering the last ten years reveals only two references to such an event, both reported from Russia (Belenkaya, I953; and Aliev, 1958). The present contribution gives an account of the spontaneous extrusion of an inhaled grass-head through a child's chest-wall.