Hyderabad hospital doctors remove pen cap stuck in man's lungs for 21 years

A 26-year-old man from Karimnagar in Telangana visited doctors of KIMS Hospital in Kondapur, Hyderabad, puzzled by his unusual health symptoms. For the past few months, he was troubled by a persistent cough, sudden, unexplained weight loss and insomnia. Initially, he was diagnosed with an infection in the lower part of his left lung after a CT scan. However, the doctors and the patient were in for a surprise when the real reason for the developments was unveiled. A lump-like foreign presence was detected in his lungs, and the doctors decided to proceed with a lengthy procedure to clear it. Upon noticing the kind of object lodged in his lungs during the surgery, they called the man's older brother to inquire whether he had ever swallowed anything as a little boy. 

How did the object get stuck in the body?
The brother of the patient recalled that at the age of five, he had swallowed a plastic pen cap. Apparently, his parents had taken him to the hospital in his childhood following the 'cap swallowing' incident. However, the doctors couldn't detect anything abnormal in the body and assumed that the object had passed out of the body. The recent scan revealed that the 1 cm pen cap was stuck in the body for all these years! 
The doctors removed muscle formations, tissue buildup and lung lymph nodes during the procedure to extract the pen cap. 

Impact of a foreign object on the body
When foreign objects enter the human body and get stuck there for extended periods, it can be extremely dangerous, say experts. Most of them leave the body through the digestive tract. However, some can get lodged in the ears, nose, skin, eyes, and airways. Procedures like bronchoscopy, endoscopy, and even magnets are used to extract such objects from human bodies. Not removing the objects can cause inflammation of abdominal tissue and chest cavity, obstruction of bowels, twisting of the intestine, bleeding, collapsing of lungs, aortoenteric fistula and oesophagal perforation. Get immediate medical care if you doubt a foreign object is lodged into your child's or your body, especially if they are high-risk objects that can cause bleeding, choking or wheezing. 
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