Pleural effusions are commonly drained with Seldinger intercostal drains. One uncommon but serious risk of drain insertion is that of a foreign body being retained in the pleural cavity following removal. We report a case in which the tip of the drain was retained in the pleural space following difficult insertion of a Seldinger intercostal drain in a district general hospital. Prompt recogniti...

Penetrating transorbitocranial injuries can occur in a variety of circumstances, and heightened suspicion is required to identify the foreign body, particularly in the setting of a trivial external wound. In “5-year-old girl with left upper eyelid swelling,” Shoeb and colleagues1 draw attention to an infrequent but important and potentially life-threatening injury. A multidisciplinary team appr...

BACKGROUND Organic foreign bodies swell when irrigated with water, potentially making extraction more difficult. As the degree and rate of swelling of different types of organic foreign bodies has not been established, we aimed to analyze the hydroscopic properties of different organic foreign bodies in body temperature water. METHODS Dry kidney beans, brown beans, peas, popcorn kernels, and ...

Foreign body ingestion occurs in not only children but also adults, particularly those with history of neurologic disease, alcohol use, or psychiatric disease. We present the case of a 40-year-old male with schizophrenia who presented to the emergency room with a long history of pharyngeal foreign body sensation which had recently progressed to include trismus, odynophagia, and dyspnea. Flexibl...

We are reporting on the implantation of a spinal cord stimulator to treat intractable radicular pain following a retained bullet fragment in the spinal canal. Such retained fragments are associated with risks including pain, neurological deficit, infection, toxic effects, and migration. Our patient was a young man with radicular pain and history of a gunshot entering the abdomen. Computed tomog...

Gossypiboma is defined as a mass caused by foreign body reaction developed around the retained surgical item in the operative area. When diagnosed, it should be removed in symptomatic patients. Minimal invasive surgery should be planned for the removal of the retained item. The number of cases treated by laparoscopic approach is rare in the literature. We present a case of forty-year-old woman ...

Hemostatic agents, routinely used in neurosurgery to achieve intraoperative hemostasis may cause foreign body reaction. These may produce clinically symptomatic and radiologically apparent mass lesions. It should be kept in mind that retained cotton or rayon materials may mimic the appearance of a tumor or an abscess on MRI scan, especially at sides of previous craniotomies. Here we report a ca...

A retropharyngeal abscess is an infection in one of the deep spaces of the neck. An abscess in this location is an immediate life-threatening emergency with potential for airway compromise and other catastrophic complications . In adults, retropharyngeal abscess can occur as a result of local trauma such as foreign body ingestion like fishbones or instrumental procedures like laryngoscopy, endo...

Common organic materials like thorns, wood and sand constitute routine accident scene flora and comprise a large percentage of foreign bodies. These low radiopaque foreign bodies present a diagnostic challenge and are routinely missed. In musculoskeletal injuries, failure to detect these foreign bodies may lead to infection, morbidity and patient dissatisfaction. A universal investigation proto...